Princess Bride..

From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Happily Ever After

Veneta Leonard

Brooke was our little princess. She was spoiled not only by me, but by her father and four older brothers as well. She was beautiful and intelligent, but also compassionate and loving. She never put herself first; she lived to make others happy. She made our souls sing.

Brooke met Dan in her junior year of college. I loved her phone calls even more now. Her laughter and giggles when she talked about Dan made my heart smile.


But when he graduated, Dan took a position two states away with an esteemed accounting firm. Over the next year, Dan and Brooke kept in constant contact. I could tell my daughter was in love, so I prayed nightly their hearts would remain strong and true, and would someday be united as one.

Brooke graduated with honors and applied for several jobs near Dan’s home. It didn’t take her long to be offered one. Now they were not only close in heart, but also close in proximity as they shared day-to-day life. Two years passed before I got the phone call I dreamed of and prayed for.

My princess was getting married!

They set a date for the following summer. Since it was already January, we had a year and a half to prepare for this joyous occasion. Brooke and I began planning a fairy-tale wedding―the only kind fit for a princess.

But on December 2, the fairy-tale world came crashing down. A simple yearly exam revealed horrifying news: Brooke had breast cancer and it was already quite advanced. We cried for hours.

Why was this happening? Why Brooke? Why my baby? Why not me? I just didn’t understand. I was terrified, confused and angry all at the same time. But I soon brushed all my emotions aside to put Brooke first.

I assured her we would beat this thing and life would go on as planned. She would grow old with Dan and the children they would one day have. I knew my princess would be okay. She had to. She was my baby and I would not say goodbye to her. After all, this wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen.

But the doctors were honest from the beginning. They only gave Brooke a 20 percent chance of survival. Because of her cancer’s advanced stage, a regimen of drugs and chemotherapy began immediately.

After only a month or so of treatment, the disease spread and my daughter got weaker. We knew Brooke had only a short time left. My heart was broken and beaten.

Throughout, Dan remained strong. He was there for Brooke every step of the way. She had lost all of her hair, dropped so much weight she couldn’t even sit without help and could stay awake no longer than ten to twenty minutes at a time. Yet Dan was there to love and support her.

One day, Dan asked for our blessing to marry Brooke before she passed away. He had loved her so long and only wanted one thing in his life: Brooke as his wife. Even if her days left on Earth were uncertain, he wanted them to be spent as a married couple.

We knew she still dreamed of the fairy-tale wedding she would now never have. But we also knew she would not want Dan to marry her when they both knew she was dying. So, we decided the wedding would be a surprise. With help and cooperation from the hospital staff, Dan secretly arranged a lovely ceremony.

When Brooke first realized what was happening, she strongly objected. But Dan explained the most important thing in his life was her. And all he wanted was her as his wife―be it for fifty years or for only a day. Brooke sobbed, but agreed. It was her dream, too.

Dan brought a simple but beautiful white gown, delicate lace scarf and sheer veil to her hospital room. The nurses and I dressed the fragile bride, using the scarf to cover her smooth head and draping the veil gently over it. Even pale and broken, my princess daughter shined. This was her day, the day she had dreamed of and planned for.

There was no elegant church as we’d once imagined. None of her family and friends were in attendance as we’d once hoped. But her beloved Dan was there, they were getting married and that was what mattered most. The two exchanged vows and a touching, sweet wedding kiss. It may not have been the fairy tale, but it was still a dream come true.

Brooke spent sixteen days as the wife of the man she adored and loved. And it wasn’t until after she passed away that I found a letter tucked into her hospital nightstand.

In it, Brooke wrote that she had only ever wanted to love, be loved and to matter to others. She expressed her gratitude for wonderful brothers and loving parents. The day Dan married her, she said, all her dreams came true. She had truly lived her life’s dream. Brooke felt her life was complete; she was neither afraid nor disappointed. And, compassionate to the end, she wished only that none of us had to suffer her loss.

Today, we often see Dan and we love him as our son and Brooke’s husband. After all, he made our daughter a princess when she most deserved to be.

Source: http://www.beliefnet.com/nllp/ChickenSoupSoul.aspx?date=9-23-2008&WT.mc_id=NL49

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The Wedding...",)

From Chicken Soup for the Soul: Dads and Daughters
John P. Walker

Jack and Jean were among our earliest friends when I began ministry in my very first church as full-time pastor. Their friendly faces and warm smiles were a great encouragement to a young preacher with the Sunday morning pulpit jitters. The smiles were genuine, and that was a surprise to me. They had been through more trials than almost anyone I’d known.

Jack had been a chemist with a successful company. Over a period of ten years, a diagnosis of severe rheumatoid arthritis took Jack from being a healthy workingman to someone confined to a wheelchair and living on a disability pension. By the time I met him, he could move himself from the wheelchair only with great difficulty, and then, only to shift to another chair, or to stand for a moment. Pain and effort showed in his face when making these transitions, which were usually few and far between.


He and Jean got around well in a new van, converted for the wheelchair. A small elevator installed in their townhouse moved Jack between the floors, and despite his misshapen, arthritis-bent fingers, he learned to use a computer and assisted us at the church with some of our financial work.

Through Jack and Jean, I came to know their now-adult daughters. When Susan, the eldest, arrived at my office to ask me to perform a wedding for her and her fiancé, Eric, it was no great surprise. Her father had hinted only a few weeks earlier that this might be coming.

The counseling and the planning of the ceremony seemed to go by very quickly, and soon it was almost time for the wedding. One day Susan made an unscheduled stop at my office. From the look on her face, I knew that something was seriously wrong. She came straight to the point. “My dad wants to walk me down the aisle,” she said, close to tears. “He really thinks he can do it. He absolutely insists on it.”

“I’ll practice until the wedding. I’m going to do this,” he told me adamantly while we sat at his kitchen table drinking tea the next day. “Please pray for me!” I knew there was no changing his mind when he was determined to do something, and so I let the subject drop. I did, however, pray.

When the evening of the rehearsal arrived, we set up several scenarios which would allow Jack to “present” the bride. Only one of the three involved him walking, and we included it only to please Jack. A brief experiment that evening seemed to deflate Jack’s determination as he only took a few steps before he had to sit back down. From the platform, I watched sadly as he hung his head where he sat. Again I prayed.

The wedding day arrived. Everything was going as planned. At the top of the hour, I found myself standing on the steps of the platform with groom and groomsmen awaiting the bridal party.

The music began playing and the bridesmaids proceeded down the aisle. Each paused and turned as she passed the front row of pews and took her place opposite the groomsmen. The maid of honor was last to walk, and as she turned in her appointed position, the music softly concluded.

After a brief pause, the organist played the dramatic opening notes of the wedding march. “Will you all please stand,” I instructed.

I found myself thinking of Jack. He had been brought up the steps to the sanctuary earlier, and now waited in the wheelchair by the door. With the struggles of the previous evening still in mind, I was sure that Jack would not be walking the aisle today. I was disappointed for his sake, but I couldn’t imagine his hurt. This had meant so much to him.

The doors to the church sanctuary opened to the side at the rear. This meant that the bride would have to walk behind the last row of pews before turning into the center aisle. I could just make out Susan’s progress above the heads of the now standing congregation because of the puff of white taffeta that stood up from her veil.

I saw that puff of white stop, and then murmuring began near the back of the church. A moment later, the beautiful bride made her turn into the main aisle. It took a second to realize what was happening. Susan was being escorted by her father, and he was walking!

Slowly, and painfully, Jack took a few steps and then paused to catch his breath. With a cane in his left hand and her arm on his right, father and daughter moved toward me. It seemed as if the entire congregation was holding its collective breath, all of us fearing that the next step would be the last. I believe, in that moment, that we were all unified in prayer for Jack.

The organist looked at me with panic in her eyes as the music came close to its conclusion. I motioned for her to continue playing, and a few more minutes inched past before the bride and her father finally arrived at the front.

As the music concluded, I quickly gathered my thoughts. Still awestruck, I voiced a rather shaky introduction. I almost choked up when I asked, “Who presents this woman to be married to this man?” Jack’s voice came back clear and strong, and not without some measure of pride: “Her mother and I do.”

As Susan hugged her father and then took her place alongside her soon-to-be husband, I noticed that her face was wet with tears. I noticed my own face was wet. In fact, it seemed like the whole congregation had been deeply moved.

The wedding reception which followed was a wonderful affair. It was one of the grandest I had ever attended. But whatever the charm or excitement of the post-wedding celebration, the highlight of the day, in everyone’s eyes, remained the miracle we had witnessed shortly before. The miracle of Jack, with determination born of love, and with faith in the living God, escorting his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day!

No truer words express the miracle of that day as those written in Mark 10:27: “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

Source: http://www.beliefnet.com/nllp/ChickenSoupSoul.aspx?date=9-12-2008&WT.mc_id=NL49

I'm Looking for this Hand...",)