The right thing to say

Ours is a fairy tale romance.

I met my husband in the 1970s. It was love at first sight but denied because of our commitments to others.

We remained professional colleagues but when I moved to Europe in 1990 we lost contact, even the little contact we had.

Then in 2012 I received a LinkedIn message "I am in Geneva, want to have coffee?"

It was love at second, third and ongoing sight.

We held a commitment ceremony  http://donnalaneandrick.com/in Aug. 2013 attended by 40 friends from seven countries.

Our combined writing lives, our trips to different countries, our times in France and Switzerland  were as close to paradise as anyone could hope. We married legally in May 2015 in Switzerland, this time with only two family-of-choice members with us.

In June they found a second cancer in my breast and since then we've been on a merry-go-round of hospital and doctors' visits. Although we never pledged the "for worse" in our vows, they fell into place as easily as  the also unpledged "for better" had.

My husband had once said he wished he had been there to help me thru my first cancer. We both laughed when I reminded him as a thoughtful wife I was giving him a chance. And we are doing our best to make the best of it.

Even though I am in my, 70s I am vain. Thus when I came out of the shower the other morning, bald and one breasted and feeling ugly without saying it, he looked at me and said in a way that I knew was meant truly from the heart "You are truly beautiful"

I may not qualify for any beauty contest, unless I was the only contestant and he was the only judge but he does qualify in my eyes as the best husband a woman, with or without cancer could have.