Back in Washington, Yoni and I leave Mimo’s apartment after a visit. Standing in the courtyard outside of her condo, he shifts his weight nervously.
“Um, Chary?” he hems and haws. “What are you doing next weekend?”
“Not sure. I think I might be getting engaged, though,” I respond giggling.
“Stop—you’re not supposed to know!” Yoni pouts in exasperation.
I feel a little guilty, but we’ve been planning the wedding for months now. Still, Yoni is a stickler for tradition, and wants to present a ring before anything is official. I know to expect something low key. Yoni’s not an exhibitionist. He doesn’t need to broadcast his love for me, because he’s already proved it a dozen times over.
The next Saturday morning, Yoni meets me, a picnic basket in hand. As we drive into Rock Creek Park, mist rises from the river and the trees seem to drip with green. We park and begin our trek through the verdant landscape. Walking up hills is once again a challenge but, unlike our first date in Manhattan, Yoni goes slowly and stops frequently to make sure I’m all right. Passing over a particularly pretty footbridge, I feel magnificently content. I don’t need fireworks or a flash mob. This moment couldn’t be more perfect. I stop and gaze out over the creek, waiting for Yoni to turn toward me.
“Come on!” he shouts, grabbing my hand and dragging me to the other side of the bridge.
He spreads a checkered tablecloth over a log and arranges an assortment of cheeses, breads, berries, sweets, and garnishes in front of us. As we make our way through the delicacies, I find myself preoccupied. This can’t happen here. Not on this muddy, rotting log. We’re probably going to walk while he talks, then finish up with the ring on the footbridge. Because our marriage was going to be a magical footbridge. Not a muddy, rotting log. He knows that, right?
Midway through dessert, Yoni begins reciting a speech. “Charity”—he says, taking my hands in his—“when I first met you, I joked you were an alien because you were so different from anyone I had ever met. You were this tall, beautiful woman and I couldn’t get my head around you—where you came from, who you were, what you were. It was so completely foreign and I knew I wanted to learn more about you.” We’re still seated firmly on the blanket, but he’s just started. He continues, “When we lost touch, I knew I’d remember you forever. Then I found you again in DC, and I felt so lucky. I didn’t think it’d be possible you’d ever want to date me but still, that Fourth of July, I was just kicking myself all night for not asking you to come on a walk with me. I thought I’d lost you again.” Still, no sign of movement. I’m really beginning to worry. “Then, of course, there was your transplant, and I was worried that I’d really lose you—permanently this time.” My tear ducts begin to fill up at his words, but I also know that, somehow, I need to get us over to that footbridge. “Charity, I love you and I don’t ever want to lose you. Come rain or shine, I want to know you are by my side.”
“Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick,” he says, shifting onto one knee—
“Stop!” I gasp through happy tears. Yoni looks at me, startled. Maybe nervous that I’ve changed my mind.
“Not here,” I plead, pointing to the bridge over his shoulder. “There!”
True to form, Yoni doubles down. “But don’t you like this?” he asks, perturbed.
“No!”
“But . . . but this is nice?” he says, half statement, half question.
“But that’s so much nicer!” I insist, still gesticulating toward the bridge a few feet away.
“Mmm. I like this.” He’s obviously made up his mind.
“Yoni, do not make me beg.”
He doesn’t respond, aggravated that I’ve interrupted him.
“I am not asking for Paris or Disney World—I don’t even care about a fancy restaurant. But so help me, if you do not take me over to that footbridge right now, Yonatan Avi Doron—”
“OK, OK. I’m walking!” he says. Then he pauses and we both begin to laugh. Then we start to cry. He takes my hand, escorts me to the bridge, and gets back down onto his knee while pulling a small box out of his back pocket.
“Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick, will you marry me?”
Most little girls dream of their wedding, but I always had other things to imagine. Things like costume jewelry and great debuts. Most of the weddings I grew up attending were homespun operations held in the gym of our local church. I never thought that I’d actually marry but if I did, my dream wedding was no wedding at all. I’d always wanted to elope like my parents; maybe later in life while I was living and performing abroad. But that wasn’t going to cut it for Yoni and his family. Naïvely, I’m certain we could find a way to make everyone happy.
During the next few weeks, I start dreaming up an actual wedding. Having spent much of the last decade being paid to traipse around stages in expensive ball gowns, I have little desire to pay tens of thousands of my own or my family’s dollars to put on a show. I want to exchange rings under a chuppah in the backyard of our Denver home. It’s already May, so we’ll miss the lilacs, but by September Mom’s cosmos will be in full bloom. Next, we’ll parade over to the historic theater a few blocks away for dinner and a show put on by the guests—many of them fellow performers and musicians. Then dancing, then cake. My favorite Mexican restaurant will cater from a truck outside of the theater and my sisters can do the flowers. The venue and the caterer are available and their prices put us way under budget, leaving extra money for music and travel. We’ll be able to invite everyone, but having the wedding in Colorado will cut the number of attendees in half. That will leave us with the people who really want to be there. It’s going to be magic.
At first, Yoni is fine with—even excited by—the idea of a Colorado wedding. Sitting in my car in Potomac, I call him to confirm before sending my account information to the restaurant and the theater. But suddenly he’s less sure than he’d been a week before.
“So you want my family to spend all of the time and all of the money to go all of the way to Colorado for the wedding?” he asks in an exasperated tone.
“Yes. Yoni, we don’t have much time. I don’t think I can plan something else.”
“My family would prefer it if we get married in DC,” Yoni states.
“You should have told me that two weeks ago!” This entire conversation is confusing me. “And why should my family travel instead of yours? There are so many more of them! A Denver wedding will cost half as much as the same thing in DC. We can use the savings to help your family pay for transportation if you want,” I say, trying to reason with him.
“So just because there are more of you, you just get to ram whatever wedding you want down my throat?” Yoni snarls back at me. I’m speechless; activist grooms are not something I’m used to. Yoni knows I’m sick. Since he can’t fight the rejection, he seems to be opting for a proxy that will make his family proud. Over the next weeks, he’ll become the ultimate wedding warrior, fighting me tooth and nail over every decision and making an enormous mess of the entire affair. He doesn’t realize how the stress of that combativeness will accelerate my physical degeneration. Back on the phone, I again try to conciliate—
“I’ve always wanted to elope?”
“No. No, no, no. I won’t stand for it. I just won’t. And my sister says she won’t come.”
“Well, she already had her wedding!” I say, half wondering if Yoni understands what, exactly, an elopement entails.
“My sister’s wedding was beautiful! And she planned the whole thing with her mother-in-law!” he hollers instructionally.
“Planning a wedding with your mom could just about kill me right now,” I retort, only half-joking.
“Look, I might be willing to forgo table service for a buffet, but I want a traditional wedding and I don’t think it’s fair to have it all the way in Denver,” Yoni says, a pretentious air of magnanimity dripping through the receiver.
“You’re ‘willing to forgo table service’? How good of you,
Yoni.”
Having a wedding is an enormous compromise for me. But even my most gratuitously revised plans can’t match the eminently standard, monstrously overpriced celebration envisioned by my husband-to-be.
Finally, after days of conflict, we decide to get married in DC. I find a historic theater an hour outside of the city that is large enough to accommodate the bigger crowd we’re likely to have. Instead of Mexican food, I settle for Chicago-style hot dogs, and my conservatory friends agree to perform. The wedding will be the grand finale to a vaudevillian ruckus, and then we’ll dance. It won’t be intimate, but it will still be magical. I find a restaurant to cater. The venue is available on the right weekend. Everything looks good.
Hoping to avoid any more conflict, I drive out to the theater with Yoni. He loves it as much as I do. But now, he wants us to double-check with his parents, whom we’re going to see that weekend.
Perhaps I should be more willing to embrace my inner diva. As a rule I’ve always thought that as long as a couple sticks to a budget, the bride should get whatever she wants. Merging two families is more than enough stress to manage. Piling joint party planning on top of that is like asking an orchestra to follow two conductors simultaneously. It’s just a bad idea. But my illness makes me extremely high maintenance as is. I take twenty pills a day; people have to use antibacterial gel before shaking my hand; I walk more slowly than everyone else. The last thing I want is to turn into a bridezilla. So I relent.
Sun streams through the windows onto the Dorons’ breakfast table on Long Island.
“So,” says his father, gruffly, “what is the plan?”
I sketch it out for Marsha and Eldad in broad terms.
“What, you’re going to feed them hot dogs?” Eldad barks out skeptically. I can already see the excitement beginning to sap from Yoni’s eyes.
I smile. “Chicago style! Yoni and I had them all the time when we started dating. And we’ll serve corn on the cob, kettle corn, cotton candy, and gourmet snow cones. I thought we could have fresh doughnuts instead of cake—my cousin did that at her wedding and it was a big hit!”
Marsha wanders over from the sink. “No,” she declares. “Absolutely not. I’m not inviting my friends to drive down to Washington, DC, to eat hot dogs.” She pauses. “My guess is your mom won’t like it either,” she adds, hopefully.
“My mom wants me to be happy.”
It’s true. Mom is a big believer in marriage over weddings. To her, the typical focus on weddings has always distracted from the importance of joining one life to another. She thinks cluttering up an eternal companionship with party planning is a waste of energy. While some other brides might want their mother to be more involved in wedding planning, I was exceedingly grateful for her hands-off approach to my nuptials. Especially when contrasted to the Dorons. An alarm goes off on my phone and I toss a handful of pills into my mouth before continuing—
“We have a few other options too. I’ve always wanted to elope.”
“Over my dead body,” interjects Marsha. “My dead body.”
“All right.” I sigh. “Then we could do only family but no one else. There are so many people who have done so much for me and my family, and if I include one person, I have to include them all. But something small could be beautiful. We could do it in the Shenandoah Valley?”
“Mmmmm,” groans Marsha, “I don’t much like that either.”
“Well, then I hope it’s not presumptuous, but you could host it here, on Long Island. You could invite anyone you wanted. My mom would come, then we’d have another party in Denver a few months later.”
She and Eldad glance at each other, then Yoni pokes me under the table. He doesn’t want a Long Island wedding.
“Or we can continue with this plan. Everyone is welcome, the music will be world class, and it should be great fun. Maybe it’s not a typical wedding, but what fun is a typical wedding anyway?”
“Eh. We’ll think about it,” Eldad says after a pause.
“We don’t actually have time to think about it.” I’m about to explode; it seems Marsha feels the same way. Looking across the table at her, I can almost see her blood pressure rising.
“Look,” she spurts out, “you’re young, you’re healthy, and you get to spend the rest of your lives together.”
“Well, not really ‘healthy,’ ” I reply, stunned by the comment.
“Quiet!” she’s almost shouting now. “You’re young. You’re healthy. This is one of the last chances we’ll have to see some of these friends who would come, and I don’t want to make them trek halfway across the country for a county fair.”
“You have options,” I say firmly. “But we need to know how to move forward within the week.” I excuse myself, panting as I rush up the stairs. I’m furious that Yoni’s parents don’t seem to grasp how quickly my health is declining. I’m even more upset at Yoni’s unwillingness to stand up to them for me.
The week comes and goes with no compromise. The DC venue is booked by someone else and Yoni, his parents, and I fall into a wedding-planning stalemate. Months pass with no progress and intermittent performances. I unintentionally lose a dozen pounds even as my siblings sneak hundreds of extra calories into everything I eat. Beyond frustration and sicker every day, I decide to go back to Denver.
Already well into the process of being relisted for a second transplant, I know that my travel will soon be seriously limited. I want to see home once more. But even I don’t realize how sick I’ve become. As I board my flight, my N95 face mask grips my face like a large hand, covering my mouth and nose. It’s not comfortable, but I’ve never gotten sick on a flight and now’s not the time to start. As the plane begins to climb, though, the mask seems to tighten around my face, making it almost impossible to breathe. But I can’t take it off—if I contract another infection, there’s no way I’ll be listed for a second transplant. Inhale. Exhale. I focus on pushing down my diaphragm, one breath at a time. Near exhaustion, I ask the flight attendant how much farther to Colorado.
“About two hours,” she chirps back.
Should I ask them to land? Why—so I can be hospitalized again? No. I’ve faced bigger challenges than this. Focusing on a white spot on the bulkhead, I relax my body into the seat cushion. Arching my back, I bring my shoulder blades together on inhalation, manually expanding my lungs. Then, I collapse my chest forward to force the air outward. I ache after an hour, still, I have no choice but to continue. I begin counting my breaths. Seven hundred . . . seven hundred one . . . seven hundred two . . . When the pilot announces our final approach, I switch to praying. I don’t know how much longer I can go.
A great sound of thunder marks the opening of the plane’s landing gear. After waiting endlessly on the tarmac, the door pops open and I hobble onto the Jetway. I rip off my mask and I lean against a steel beam as I gasp for air. But it’s not the relief I’d hoped for. Breathing is easier, but the air is dry and thin. I brace myself against the beam, finding it difficult to stand. Finally, my wheelchair arrives.
Mom meets me at door 606, her car packed with dogs. I fall asleep in the passenger seat, only waking to stumble into bed when we arrive home. The next morning, I try to explain the plane ride to Mom. To the person experiencing a challenge, Mom always underplays its significance—
“Well, I’m glad you powered through, sweetheart. Just keep up with your breathing exercises and it will get better.” But after we speak, she quietly calls to schedule a home nurse visit, concerned I might not be well enough to get to a doctor’s office.
That night, our unofficial sister, Pinky, comes over with an arsenal of crafting supplies. Together, we make a bevy of mock wedding announcements. I whip them out, each more ridiculous than the last, until they number over thirty. It’s exactly the pressure release I need for my wedding-related angst and I go to sleep laughing so much that tears soak my pillow.
The doorbell rings, waking me. No one else seems to hear it, so I make my way to the front door, ne
arly fainting on the way. Steadying myself on the door frame, the home nurse comes in and guides me to a nearby chair. She places an oximeter on my finger to measure my blood oxygen levels. Pulling her head back in alarm, she inquires—
“Do you have any nail polish on—” Seeing my unvarnished nails, she revises, “maybe just a clear coat?”
“No,” I assure her.
“You need oxygen immediately. Excuse me.”
She steps into the other room and makes a call. I put the oximeter back on my finger. The numbers waver between 69 and 75 percent. When oxygenation dips below 90 percent, a patient is usually hospitalized. It’s a wonder I lived through my flight. It’s a wonder I’m still conscious.
Within hours, the insurance company delivers an oxygen machine. They roll in the suitcase-sized contraption and the nurse slips a cannula over my head. My heart sinks. This isn’t supposed to happen again. Certainly not so soon. But as the machine hisses and grumbles, I’m grateful to feel better. I guess a bedridden trip home is better than wedding planning and replanning with my beloved groomzilla in Washington. Still, I wish I could just catch a break.
Yoni’s visiting his sister in the hamlet of Hamilton, New York. As I dial him, my hand shakes with nervousness. “Yoni?”
“Hey,” he says as he picks up. “I wish you were here with me. It’s so beautiful up here.”
“Honey,” I explain, “I’m getting sick faster than I thought.”
“What’s wrong? Are you OK?”
I explain my latest ordeal.
“Babe, why don’t we just have the wedding here, upstate? You’ll love it. And you won’t have to worry about a thing,” he promises.
“If we do it in DC, my sisters can help. They’ll make it beautiful.”
“No. Let’s do it here!” he pleads.
“I don’t want to ask my entire extended family to spend the time and money going to the middle of nowhere New York if they’re going to have to do all of the work to pull the wedding together at the last minute, Yoni.” I’m already feeling serious trepidation. “That’s not fair. If we do it in your sister’s town, you and your mom need to make sure it’s nice.”
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