Sickness and health
It’s July 2022 and you say you think we should renew our vows.
.
We’ve talked about it before but it’s never felt urgent enough.
I didn’t want it to feel urgent enough.
But now it does.
.
It’s the start of the summer holidays.
Six weeks of entertaining three energetic children.
“Okay,” I tell you. “I’m up for attending. But I can do nothing to help organise it.”
You are between Chemo rounds.
“That’s okay”, you say. “I’ll do it all.”
.
And you do.
.
You set the date.
You design the invites.
You draw up the guest list.
You plan the food.
You arrange entertainment for the kids.
You acquire festoons.
You book the accommodation.
You plan the ceremony with my dad.
You dig out your wedding dress.
You hire a port-a-loo (to ease my mounting panic about how 150 people will share one toilet).
You find a gardener.
.
Because this is what you do.
You make things happen.
Magical things.
.
And so it is this time.
.
150 of our family and closest friends aged 3 months up to 70 years, from old acquaintances to new pals descend on our sun-drenched patio.
In the end I contributed the playlist and the booze, as you knew I would, so the music is great and the drinks are flowing.
At the appointed hour, we all gather under the shade of our woodland clearing where you make me wait almost precisely the 23 minutes you had done 13 years previously, before finally arriving in your dress.
.
And my god.
You
are
beautiful.
.
And I know
that no matter what else I’ve done
the best thing I ever did
was marry you.
.
And thanks to you
I get to do it all over again.
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On Coping is my story of surviving on the sidelines of cancer. It begins in 2022 with On Coping #1, written the day after my 41st birthday. The day my wife Imogen, the mother of my three children, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. It’s the story of what happened next. Read from the start.