Our double wedding was mum's last wish
Saturday 30th May 2009
My dad, Paul Chapman, looked serious as he beckoned me into the kitchen. 'Your mum and I have decided to renew our vows on Valentine's Day,' he told me. Some people don't like it when their parents get all soppy, but this was a lovely gesture. You see, my mum, Sharon, 42, was dying and we didn't know how long she had. She'd beaten a brain tumour once, back in 1999, just after my little brother, Oliver, now 10, was born. But last October, Dad, 46, had gathered me, Oliver, our brother, Ross, 19, and my fiancé, Ricky, 24, to tell us the doctors had found lesions in Mum's liver, kidney and spine. I was three months' pregnant at the time, and just days earlier, Mum and I had been saying how lovely it would be if I had a boy, after my two girls, Courtney, 6, and Paighton, 5. 'No, no, no!' I cried. 'It's OK,' Mum reassured us all. 'I've beaten it once.'
She was booked in for an operation to remove a tumour from her spine, and a couple of days later, I learned I was carrying a boy. 'That's brilliant!' Mum beamed. But when Dad rang from the hospital, the news was bad. 'The surgeons can't operate after all,' he said. 'The tumour's too big.' The doctors talked about radiotherapy, but we all knew to expect the worst, and when Mum came home from hospital in January, it was in a wheelchair because the tumour had paralysed her from the waist down. But she insisted we carry on as normal, and that I bring the girls to see her every day. She loved it when her house was full of people, so as soon as Dad told me they were planning on renewing their vows in the living room, I knew she'd be in her element. Then an idea hit me. 'I know we've been waiting to marry until we can afford a big wedding,' I told Ricky. 'But more than that, I want my mum there. Let's get married on the same day as Mum and Dad.' Dad loved the idea.
Trouble was, the big day was just a week away. The vicar had to write to the Archbishop of Canterbury for a special licence, but just a day later, we got a 'yes'. Now I could tell Mum. 'Fancy sharing your big day with me?' I smiled. 'Oh love,' she sobbed. 'But you wanted a white wedding.' But I wanted to get married with my mum more. I'd soon ordered a dress and found two cream bridesmaids' dresses for the girls. My auntie, Joanne Trimble, 39, made two cakes, and my friend, Stacey Cassidy, offered to do my hair, make-up and nails. On the big day, I headed to Mum and Dad's at 7.30am. Auntie Joanne helped Mum get ready in the living room, while I got the girls into their cream dresses upstairs. When I took them down, Mum welled up. 'Oh they look lovely,' she sobbed. I nipped back upstairs to get ready, and Stacey was just finishing my hair when a chorus of voices shouted: 'Vicar's here!'
Mum cried again when I came downstairs. 'Come here. I want to give you a kiss,' she smiled through the tears. I met Dad in the hallway and he walked me in behind the girls, then he went out and came back in, pushing Mum in her chair. Forty close friends and family filled the room. All four of us lined up in front of the vicar as he conducted both ceremonies at the same time. I cried all the way through, particularly when Mum and Dad vowed: 'Till death do us part.' As I clutched Ricky's hand, it made me realise how much marriage means. Sticking together through good times and bad, just as Mum and Dad had always done. It was perfect.
Within days, though, Mum had got a lot worse, and she died early on Mother's Day morning. I felt relief she was out of pain, but despair, fear and anger, too. Four days later, it was standing room only at the crematorium in Kettering. We released pink balloons with messages attached. Then we set rockets off, which had been Oliver's idea. 'You can go out with a bang,' he'd said. She'd have laughed at that. By the time you read this, I'll have had my little boy. It upsets me that Mum will never meet her grandson. But I'll always be grateful she saw me walk down the aisle. That's the real meaning of marriage. Not flowers, expensive dresses and stress. Just love.