Fiancee's last request: A bittersweet wedding

12 years of love. 8 years of engagement. 2 years battling cancer. 1 last request.

By JODIE TILLMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published August 10, 2007

Cindy Lunsford cries during her wedding to Clarence Garvin at the Lakewood Church of God in Hudson on Thursday evening. Hospice workers helped Lunsford realize her dream of marrying her longtime fiancee despite financial difficulty. Photo gallery
	[Mike Pease | Times]

MOON LAKE — Eight years ago, on her 25th birthday, she was cutting a piece of cake when her boyfriend walked into the kitchen. He asked: Will you marry me? She dropped the knife. Will you marry me, he asked again, and she said yes.

Love was a given, but marriage seemed a luxury they could put off to meet other demands: Rent was due. Bills piled up. The car broke down. Rent was due again.

So Cindy Lunsford and Clarence Garvin set their wedding date for the day they got ahead. That day never came. But harder days did.

Lunsford, now 33, developed advanced ovarian cancer in 2005. After multiple surgeries, 12 sessions of chemotherapy and, finally, a decision to forgo additional treatment, she faced this question from her hospice worker: Did she have any last wishes?

She said yes. If only for a short time, she wanted to live as Garvin's wife.

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Twelve years ago, a cousin's house. She's sitting on the couch, and a guy named Clarence who is there keeps tossing things at her. He was like a little boy who flirts by tugging a girl's pigtails. Lunsford asks someone: What's up with him? But she couldn't stop smiling about his overtures.

They started going to the movies, dancing at clubs with names like Graffiti Beach and Vertigo. "Clarence was a wild man, party hearty," said Lunsford, who used to work as an assistant at nursing homes. "But he gave me attention. And that's what I was missing in my life, attention from a man."

They moved in and had three children together: Erika, 11; Brittany, 7 and Timothy, 4. Lunsford also has a 14-year-old son, Alex, from a previous relationship.

After Lunsford got sick in 2005, Garvin, the wild party man, became a dependable companion. By day he works for a lawn care service. At night he cooks, washes dishes, does the laundry.

Lunsford says she wants little more than to be around him and the children, to whom she has explained the reality she now accepts.

"I just tell them I'm sick and I'm not getting better," she said. "That I have good days and bad days and that one day I'm going to heaven."

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Hospice workers aren't always in a position to grant last wishes, to right regrets. But some wishes are too obtainable not to try.

When Lunsford told her Gulfside Regional Hospice social worker, Marilyn Peck, about wanting to get married but not having the money, Peck turned into a wedding planner.

She enlisted the help of other Gulfside employees and they starting taking up donations. They scoured the hospice's thrift store and found a wedding dress, a groom's suit and outfits for the children. They got a cake and bouquets, found a church in Hudson, got refreshments and tablecloths and decorations. Then, they set a date.

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Thursday evening, Lakewood Church of God. Lunsford is in a small room with four bridesmaids and an endless stream of children. Curling irons are hanging off folding chairs; a V-neck wedding gown is hanging on the wall. Lunsford is helped into her dress and slips her feet into white high heels.

Her daughters hover nearby, and she hands them their bouquets. "Ya'll hold those and go sit at the front," she says. Her side is starting to hurt. Her nurse comes by to check if she needs more pain medicine.

Outside, Peck gets the groomsmen to line up in the foyer. The bridesmaids emerge from the room and stand beside the men. They fidget until the music begins. Off they go, and the bride remains.

She is waiting in a hallway. "No, honey," she says to Timothy, her 4-year-old, who's already lost his new tie and pulled his shirt out of his pants. He had yanked the back of her veil and now he just stared silently, holding onto an artificial purple flower.

"Marilyn, can you fix this?" she asks Peck.

"I tried to fix it," her father says softly as he watches the social worker adjust the veil.

Peck peeks into the chapel and looks back at Lunsford. "It's showtime," she says.

But Timothy doesn't want to leave his mother's side.

"No, you can't go with Mommy," Lunsford keeps saying. "Go sit with Alex." He hangs his head and won't move. Peck finally coaxes him into a back pew.

The music begins. Timothy stands up. The bride smiles and passes through the doorway, on her way to hear the minister talk about love as a divine force, on her way to say "I do" and to kiss her new husband. Timothy grips his flower tight and watches his mother pass him by.

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. Jodie Tillman can be reached at (727) 869-6247 or jtillman@sptimes.com. 

[Last modified August 10, 2007, 00:12:21]