We’re reaching for the tissues at the truly touching way this Tennessee man gave his cancer-stricken bride the wedding she’d always hoped for.
Surrounded by close friends, family and their young son and daughter, Ronda Bivens said ‘I do’ to her long-time partner Matt Mager in an intimate ceremony performed from her hospital bed.
Knowing her time in this life was going to be limited after a devastating diagnosis and ongoing cancer battle, marrying the man of her dreams was the one thing Ronda wanted most.
“She wanted to have a beautiful wedding, and I wanted to give her that,” newlywed Matt tells HuffPost.
The pair married before loved ones from Ronda’s hospital bed.
After two misdiagnoses on a lump in her ankle, first thought to be tendonitis and then a torn tendon, Ronda was found to have epithelioid sarcoma – a rare, soft-tissue tumour thought to affect less than one in two million people.
She underwent chemotherapy, radiation and a leg amputation in May 2016, but devastatingly, the cancer had spread to the mother-of-two’s lungs. Now, the illness has seeped into her brain.
“They told us right off the bat there was no cure,” Matt tells the publication.
“They said, ‘We can just do what helps.’ But everything they’ve done has just made it worse. It’s financially wrecked us, and I’ve had a front-row seat to my best friend dying. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s very emotional.”
The family continue to fight the devastation that is Ronda’s cancer battle.
At a loss for options, Ronda was allowed to leave the hospital so that she could spend the remainder of her time with her family in the comfort of her own home.
“I hold her hand every day and am trying to focus on the time we have,” Matt says, adding that a morphine pump provides relief for his “fighter”.
The couple’s children, aged six and four, are now taking the time to get to know their mother. Matt says that while their daughter isn’t old enough to understand the situation, their elder son is distraught.
“I told him his mother is going to heaven soon,” Matt tells. “I’ve sat there and talked with him and cried with him. I had to tell him it ain’t going to be same. It’s hard ― no six-year-old should have to hear that.”
“I can’t even tell you how strong she is.”
A GoFundMe page sharing the family’s story with the hopes so assist in medical bills has raised almost $15,000 in just over a week.
The future is uncertain for this young couple and their children, but with each day that passes, Ronda is fighting with both strength and courage.
“Our children will never forget her. I tell her every day the kids are never not going to know who you are.”
