Just 12 days short
of my first anniversary from heart surgery I got married to my
wonderful British girlfriend, Karen. It was also the day before I
celebrated my 21st year of sobriety. We got married in
the Presbyterian Church, which is the American branch of the Church
of Scotland. Kind of fitting since I am a member of the Episcopalian
Church, which is the American branch of the Church of England. In
the corner of the church was an American flag, nope we didn’t have
a flag of the United Kingdom anywhere.
It was a very small
wedding, yet it was beautiful and perfect. By the end of the day,
complete strangers were friends and the next day we heard from a
couple of people how they wished all weddings were like that.
The same day we got
married, we went with the vicar to the courthouse and got all the
paperwork done and had everything in our hands right away. Karen
would take this proof with her back to England and would start the
process for me to move to England.
It was a process
that we had no idea how long it would take. We knew for
non-Europeans wanting to immigrate to the United Kingdom was an
uphill climb. One that you had to make sure that all the “t’s”
were crossed and all the “i’s” were dotted. There was no way
we could have handled it on our own. The reality was that there was
no way Karen could handle it all. It was unfair of me to dump it all
on her, but there was no other way. She lived in England while I was
over 5,000 miles away.
The best thing we
did to make sure we could be together was to hire an attorney to do
the paperwork for us. It may have cost us some money, but the stress
and worries it saved us was well worth it.
Three months after
our wedding and just over a year since heart surgery, I was granted a
visa to live and work in the United Kingdom and I started my new
life, in a new country on 1 January 2016. I was so happy and also
relieved when I moved.
Before my health
scare, I knew something wasn’t right but I had no idea what could
be wrong. So, after everything happened and everything was fixed, I
felt comfortable with the move. Not because of my health, rather
because I wasn’t bringing illness into our new life together.
Sadly, within ten
months of living in England, I was diagnosed with mouth cancer. As
much as I wanted to protect Karen from my past health issues, there
was nothing I could do to protect her from this happening. What I
could do though, was to make it as least painful as possible. That
meant doing everything doctors wanted me to do and to be active in
every procedure I had to take.
Admittedly, I hated
and feared a lot of it and even wanted to quit but I made it through
and today I am cancer-free with a strong heart. Today, my wife looks
at me and knows how much fight I have in me, not just for my life but
for ours as a couple...
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