A 33-year-old woman, suffering from cancer that left her only a few months to live, married on her hospital bed before dying a few days later. Her husband says.
Samantha Webster, a 33-year-old British teacher, was described as “fit and healthy”. But the one who has never “smoked, drunk alcohol or taken drugs” and who was planning to have a baby, complained a few months ago of stomach pains. Suffering from aggressive appendix cancer, she learned that she only had a few months left to live.
Death ten weeks after diagnosis
Determined to marry before she died, Samantha married her partner Alec in the hospital where she was cared for, in Shropshire, England. She finally died a few days later with her new husband by her side and only ten weeks after being diagnosed.
“When she was diagnosed with cancer, we had to pull out all the stops. We had already decided that we were going to get married,” said Alec, her husband. “Samantha was the only person who could smile despite everything that was going on and she made other people smile. We don’t have a picture where she’s not smiling,” he explains.
Terminally ill bride marries devoted partner in hospice bed days before she diedhttps://t.co/mo6Pnl5kVb pic.twitter.com/rZRovFOIiI
—Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) November 20, 2018
“The most beautiful and the worst day of our life”
The two lovers dreamed of having a child. But unable to do so because of illness, they wanted to realize their other dream: to get married. “It was a wonderful day and I was happy to be able to make it happen, because we had always wanted to get married,” says Alec. “It was a very emotional moment. Both the most beautiful and the worst day of our lives”.
To prepare for the ceremony, all hospital staff mobilized. “What they’ve done is phenomenal, they’ve gone above and beyond what we expected, they’ve done a lot for Samantha,” says Alec. “They reserved an area of the hospital for us to use. We had all the decorations and everything we could want. It made us feel like we had a real wedding.”
A second death for the husband
Although Samantha learned of the existence of her cancer only ten weeks before her death, the doctors told her that she had probably developed it six to eight months earlier. “It was such a rare cancer that I couldn’t blame the doctors,” Alec commented. “It was just one of those cruel things that happen in life.”
Her new husband paid tribute to his “soul mate” who “touched the lives of so many people”. Despite the mourning, he wanted to share this story to prove how strong his wife was. It is the second tragedy Alec has experienced following the death of his 18-year-old daughter Nioni from a previous relationship, who died in 2016 of leukemia. Nearly 300 people were present at Samantha’s funeral to pay their last respects.
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