I Gave My Mom Her Last Wish On Mother’s Day
All she ever wanted was to see me get married… and she did, five days before she left us.
On September 5, my husband and I will be married… again.
Let me back up.
My husband Jacob and I got engaged in December of 2022.
We had one destination in mind for our wedding: Greece. It was a dream of mine and my mom’s to have our whole family there, celebrating our marriage. (Yes, we are a big “fat” Greek family).
For as long as I can remember, all my mom ever wanted was to see me get married. Growing up we couldn’t drive past a bridal salon without her saying “I better start looking for a Mother of the Bride dress now!” Any wedding we attended would always somehow come back to how the day I get married is going to be the happiest day of her life, and that I am going to be the most beautiful bride in the world.
And in 2016 when she was first diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma, a blood cancer, we all knew she fought for me, my brother, and to be at my future wedding. (It’s besides the point that I wasn’t close to getting engaged then, let alone married).
My mom’s cancer was in remission for five years when it returned in December 2021. Putting it mildly, that fight was a scary one. The combination between her chemotherapy treatment and stem cell transplant landed her in the ICU for almost a week. But she, very slowly, made a full recovery, and her cancer was back in remission by June of 2022.
Although Jacob and I weren’t yet engaged, that’s when he and I began seriously talking about a 2023 wedding. We knew we would end up together, and we also knew that we couldn’t depend on her health through 2024.
Jacob and I got engaged on December 23, 2023. And in timing I will never understand, less than a week later, we found out my mom’s cancer had returned for a third time, and this time it would likely be terminal.
Saying I was devastated is an understatement.
For days I cried myself to sleep, questioning why this is my story, why this is my life. We didn’t know whether to pause all wedding planning, or rush all wedding planning. We didn’t know anything at all.
A few weeks later her doctor provided one final hope: an immunotherapy treatment, only available to failed stem-cell transplant patients (she previously had four of them).
At her age and health it was risky, but the trial results were promising, and my mom had beaten this thing twice before. If she were to beat it again, she would begin gaining her strength and mobility back mid-summer, and have achieved recovery by August or September.
With careful consideration, we decided to plan our dream wedding in Greece for September 2023. Hoping for the best, but knowing that if we were to receive an unfavorable update, that we would expedite our wedding date and have a ceremony here.
So we scheduled our wedding for Tuesday, September 5, 2023, in Vouliagmeni, Greece, along the Athens Riviera.
And we prayed, every single day, that God would allow her to be there.
The subsequent months my mom’s health visibly declined, with wins that were few and far between. We remained hopeful, as treatments take time. Initially her doctors agreed, but over time the lack of progress became undeniable.
On May 5th we received the shattering news that her treatment had failed, and her next step was hospice at home.
From that day we began talking about what our wedding ceremony would look like here. Would it be in Lincoln Park, under the honeycomb? Would it be on the golf course my parent’s lived on? Who should we invite?
We penciled in Sunday, June 4th as the date. The original date of my now-postponed bridal shower. Surely, we had a month? Hospice patients could live up to a year. While I mentally saved the date, my long-time best friend JoAnn began to plan around it.
Wednesday, May 10th my mom came home from the hospital and entered hospice. She was in a wheelchair and bedridden, but she was so much herself. She had her personality, her love, her warmth, it was all still very present. We watched movies. We talked. We laughed. We cried. We were fully prepared for a summer of sadness, but a summer of capturing all we could with her.
How naive of me to think we had a summer.
Two days later, on May 12, around 7pm, we received a call from my mom’s oncologist, Dr. Mehta. My mom put him on speakerphone, and with my brother, myself, and my stepdad around her, she asked the question we didn’t dare to ask.
“How long do I have, Dr. Mehta?”
Without pause, he responded “If I were to guess, probably just a few days. It could be a couple weeks, but realistically I would think about 4–5 days.”
At that moment, the four of us fell apart. And amidst the grieving, all I could think was, “Jacob and I have to get married.”
Frantic, I called Jacob who was at our apartment in the city at the time, and proposed a wedding for Sunday, May 14. Mother’s Day. Without hesitation, he agreed, and said he would call his parents and make sure they could be there.
I called JoAnn and updated her. She was both stunned and devastated, and reassured me that without a doubt Sunday was going to be our wedding day, and that she would take care of everything.
After having so many wheels in motion, I rejoined my family. We sobbed. We held each other. We talked. And after a few hours, when it was time, I let them know that Jacob and I will be married on Sunday.
Were they excited?
No, no one was, not even me. And we didn’t even know how it was going to happen. I just knew it was going to happen, because it had to. I had to do this for my mom, and for myself.
That night I texted our limited invitation list. My mom’s sister, my mom’s three best friends, my Godparents. I texted my cousin’s husband Mark, who officiated weddings in the past but was never ordained. One hour later he texted me, “ordained!” Everyone RSVP’d yes.
I sent an Instagram message to Ashlyn Henry, my favorite Chicago photographer, who I had been in touch with about photographing our tentative June 4th wedding.
I let her know of the new plan, that it was okay if she couldn’t be there, but could she be? She said without a doubt, she would be there.
I went to bed, not knowing what was happening in my world, but knowing that this was the best gift I could give my mom.
The next day, May 13, was a good day, all things considered.
I woke up to my mom already “up” and sitting at the kitchen table. “Good morning, mom!” I said as I leaned down to give her a kiss. “Another day together, huh?” We smiled and laughed, thankful for one more day.
“Laura’s coming to do my hair today!” she exclaimed. “I’m getting ready for my party.” Truly, the cutest.
During breakfast we sent some texts and arranged for a manicurist to come to the home the next day to do her nails, the one thing she had wanted for months.
As I went to get showered, the doorbell rang. Not expecting anyone, I was surprised to open the door and see a Drizly delivery man, delivering 10 bottles of Moet Chandon. Sent from Jacob’s brother in Minnesota. Whoa.
As I went to text Ben to thank him, I noticed a text from JoAnn.
“Hey I have three dresses and two pairs of shoes that were all delivered for you. Come over whenever to try them on. Also — I picked up your earrings from the bridal salon. They had them in!”
What?!
“You’re amazing. I’ll be by this afternoon.” I typed back.
More texts from Jo awaited as I got out of the shower: she was out shopping for something my mom could wear to our wedding. Photos of blazers and sweaters in my mom’s size. She bought multiple things.
I spent the next few hours by my mom’s side, holding her hand as she slept. When my mom’s hairstylist arrived I headed over to Jo’s to try on my wedding dress.
Stepping into JoAnn’s home was like stepping into a floral shop. Gorgeous, colorful, punchy flowers poured across her kitchen table as she and her sister Katie were making bouquets and arrangements and listening to oldies music, my mom’s favorites. Naturally, I burst into tears.
We all went upstairs to try on the dresses and shoes Jo ordered. The first that I put on was a simple, off-the-shoulder and off-the-rack Jenny Yoo dress, with Amazon dupe Loeffler Randall shoes.
“Oh my god, you look beautiful!” They both said the moment I stepped out from the closet. “How is this possible?!” Katie beamed. “It’s the first thing you put on!”
I turned to see myself in the mirror. They were right; it was perfect. I had a wedding dress, and it was one I felt really pretty in, too.
So much was coming together.
As I drove home I received a call from my Auntie Sherry, one of my mom’s best friends and one of our few wedding guests. She owns a jewelry store downtown and made my engagement ring.
“Jeannie, do you have a ring for tomorrow? I have one very simple gold band in stock, in your size. Do you want me to bring it?” Definitely, I said. Jacob’s parents were heading to Macy’s to find a ring for him.
Everyone that day was texting me asking what they could bring. Dessert, apps, wine? Yes, I said. To all of it.
I spent the rest of the day and night next to my mom. Holding her hand, talking, watching our favorite Rom Coms, The Parent Trap, old and new.
That night I went to bed, praying that God would give us one more good day.
The next morning I woke up to gray skies and light rain. It was Mother’s Day, my wedding day, and the first day we saw a major decline in my mom’s health.
She couldn’t get out of bed, and said it felt like every bone in her body had been crushed. We inevitably canceled her manicure and kept her as comfortable as she possibly could be, wanting to preserve her energy for 4pm. We decided due to the weather and her immense pain, that we would have the ceremony indoors, in her living room.
JoAnn arrived at noon and began to set up. She arranged furniture, unfolded chairs, carried in flower arrangements and vases and a wedding arch. She saw that I still needed to get showered and told me to go get ready.
I curled my own hair and did my own makeup, not feeling qualified at all to do either for my own wedding day, but knowing that it was good enough.
Once I was put together enough, I came back down and did my mom’s makeup. She was too tired and in too much pain to change clothes, so we slipped a beautiful teal sweater over her head. One JoAnn had purchased the day before.
Ashlyn arrived at 3pm and began taking photos: of my dress, of my rings, of my shoes. I wore one of my mom’s rings on my right hand, and spritzed her Prada perfume on my wrist. I got ready in my mom’s room, in my mom’s vanity.
I got to have a first look with my mom, and as I stepped in front of her, she closed her eyes and began to cry. “Open your eyes, Mommy!”
“I will once I stop crying” she replied.
She told me how beautiful I looked, something she told me every day. But this day, it meant more.
I spent a few minutes with her then, hugging her, kissing her, telling her how much I loved her. Feeling so thankful for that moment, and having Ashlyn there to capture it all.
Soon after, Jacob arrived with our dog Rebel. We had our own first look, too. Rebel lept when he saw me, creating a smudge of dirt on my dress. “Leave it.” JoAnn said. “I love it actually. This day is not about being perfect.”
When everyone was inside and seated and JoAnn called me in.
I walked into the house and down the short aisle to a version of Frankie Valley’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You”. I kissed my stepdad before taking my place in front of Jacob, before my mom, ready to get married with my mom present, on Mother’s Day.
The ceremony was beautiful. It was maybe 10 minutes long and interrupted by a ringing cell phone, a malfunctioning Alexa, and a couple other laughable moments. But most of all, it was filled with love. More love that I have ever felt or experienced in my entire life.
After the ceremony we ate and drank and celebrated the best we could. We rotated spending time with my mom who needed to lie back down shortly after the ceremony ended. “Is everyone enjoying the party? Is everyone eating?” She asked me, like a typical Greek mother would.
“Yes mom, they are.”
The next morning I woke up, praying she would still be with us. When I came downstairs she immediately lit up when she saw me “Congratulations, Mrs. Taché” she said smiling. We recounted the wedding. Some things she forgot, but many she remembered. That night Ashlyn sent us about forty photos, and my mom and I got to enjoy them together.
“Is she sending more?” My mom asked.
“Yes, she will be” I replied with tears, knowing we wouldn’t receive them for a couple of weeks. Weeks that she didn’t have.
Four days later, on the early morning of May 19, 2023, my beautiful mom, Annette Starr, passed away.
Among the overwhelming grief, I also felt undeniable gratitude.
My mom was at my wedding, and got to see me get married.
And while I never in a million years thought this would be my story, our story, I am thankful that God gave us this opportunity to give her, and me, what we always wanted.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to…
Ashlyn Henry for my beautiful and life-changing wedding photos. Because of you, the most important day of my life was captured, and I have photos of my mom and I together on my wedding day.
To Jacob’s brother Ben for the champagne delivery.
To my Auntie Sherry for my perfect wedding band.
To my stepdad Jim Starr for loving my mom.
To my brother Jimmy for facing this alongside me.
To Jacob’s parents, Kathy and Dan Taché, for not hesitating to drive three hours from their home in Wisconsin to be at our wedding.
To my Nouna and Nouno for flying home from Florida a week early.
To my auntie Rosie, my auntie Val, my auntie Kia for being there and for anything and everything you brought: desserts, apps, wine.
My cousin Christopher for all of the Greek food you picked up.
My cousin-in-law Mark for doing whatever you did to become ordained, and marrying us.
To my auntie Diane for being such a wonderful friend to my mom for so many years.
To my cousins and friends for understanding that this day needed to have a limited invite list.
To my wonderful husband Jacob for loving my mom so much, for loving me so much, and not hesitating to marry me four months early.
And thank you to my best friend in the entire world, JoAnn Neenan. I don’t know what I did to deserve you.
Dress: Jenny Yoo
Flowers: Trader Joes
Wedding Arch: Party City
Wedding Planner: JoAnn Neenan
Photographer: Ashlyn Henry
Earrings: Bella Bleu Bridal
Shoes: Amazon.com
Food: Psistaria, Spartan Bros, & Family
Hair: Me
Makeup: Me
Mom’s Makeup: Me
Perfume: Prada Amber
Wedding Bands: The Goldsmith & Macy’s
Song: Can’t Take My Eyes Off You; creamy, Solace, 11:11 Music Group/ Frankie Valli
Love: Everywhere
