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The sorrow of a loss can only be known by someone who has lost. While people around the person may prove to be helpful with the coping process, the void created can never be filled. There is always an emptiness that remains in the form of memories. And sadly as the universe works, the only thing a person can do with memories is recollect them. This heart-shattering tale of a widower will make my words more clear to you.
A sorrowful widower named John Polo, from Illinois shared a heart-rending photo of his deceased wife in a wedding dress, who died just days before their real wedding.
The words that John chose to express his grief were even more heartbreaking.
That’s my wife.
In her wedding dress.
A wedding dress that I never got to see her in.
We were married at the courthouse a few days before her first surgery was scheduled to take place.
We rushed there. To become man and wife.
Not knowing if she would make it out of the surgery alive.
After the cancer came back and she was terminal, we decided to plan a real wedding.
She didn’t make it to that real wedding.
She died two weeks before it was scheduled to take place.
I have so many regrets.
Not getting to see her walk down the aisle is atop that list.
But, she got that dress. Her dream dress.
She loved that dress SO much.
While at hospice, she would talk to people about how great the wedding was going to be.
She wasn’t coherent enough to realize that she wasn’t going to make it to there.
Michelle died without me ever seeing her in that dream dress.
A week after she passed away I stumbled across this picture in her phone.
I lay motionless in bed, both happy and devastated.
Tears flowing down my cheeks as I laughed aloud at the memory of how giddy it made her.
My bride.
In her dress.
I want to live a long life.
I want to remarry and have grandkids.
I want to write and teach.
I want to spread my message to the world.
I want to tell them everything I have learned about love, loss, grief and healing.
But.
When it is my time, I am running up there.
No – I am sprinting up there!
To see her.
John met his late wife Michelle in high school. The two dated for a year and broke up later. However, call it faith or destiny, the two met again after 8 years and started dating once more.
Michelle was detected with proximal-type epithelioid sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that leads to death for most of the people. This resulted in the couple getting married in a quick courthouse ceremony, with hopes of a bigger and better wedding in the future.
However, all hopes died a painful death for the couple, when the Cancer returned back after 3 years, exactly the time the couple planned for the second wedding. And unfortunately, Michelle passed away just two weeks before her big happy day.
John found the picture of her in the wedding dress 2 weeks later, as Michelle didn’t want him to see the dress until the wedding day. Here is what he said to Daily Mail about the time when he discovered the picture.
‘I was happy and devastated at the same time, but if I had to choose one emotion to describe how I felt when I saw it, it would be pride,’ he wrote. ‘I felt pride she was my wife.’
Clearly, one of the most heart-shattering stories we’ve come across. The spirit displayed by John in spite of the immense pain is commendable. He has recently started writing a blog with a hope that it will help him cope better with his grievances.
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