M.Khizar Bawani Reintegration to civilian life took time. “The neighborhood I lived in wasn’t the safest, and I had to give myself time to readjust to the point where I could be in groups of people and not freak out,” Garish said.
He had never been married and had no children, but Garish had shown an inclination to care for them. Before he and Stipkovits reunited in 2010, he’d donated much of his first Army paycheck, around $600, to Jamie’s Dream Team, a local charity. The money helped a six-year-old boy suffering from the genetic disorder Marfan syndrome go on a long-wished-for camping trip.
On August 20, 2017, three years after her first cancer diagnosis, Stipkovits was being fitted with a portable defibrillator at UPMC Shadyside Hospital in Pittsburgh. “I think we deserve something good to happen,” Garish said out of the blue. “Will you marry me?”
Stipkovits laughed. “It was just so funny,” she said. “I was in a hospital bed, dying. I looked at him and said, ‘You just want the insurance money.’”
But behind the laughter was elation. “I had the same wish every little girl does of a fairy-tale wedding, the crystals and the Cinderella ball gown. And I always told myself that if I found someone who bonded with my daughter in the manner he did, I would marry him.”
She said yes.
The fairy-tale fantasy, though, was far out of reach. The hospital bills were adding up, and Stipkovits had long been too sick to work.
But there are those around McKeesport who believe in making dreams come true. Doctors had not told Stipkovits how long she could expect to keep fighting. But in late 2017, Lori McKown, an oncology social worker at the hospital, started contacting charities. A colleague told her about Jamie’s Dream Team. “Little did I know her fiancé had donated his first paycheck there,” she said.
Jamie Holmes, the founder of Jamie’s Dream Team, hadn’t forgotten Garish. “I was like, absolutely we’re going to put on a wedding for them,” she said.
On February 17, two months after Jamie’s Dream Team rallied more than a dozen Pittsburgh-area vendors to donate things such as flowers, a wedding cake, and a photo booth, Garish and Stipkovits were married before 200 guests at Old Stone Church in Monroeville, Pennsylvania.
Stipkovits, flanked by four bridesmaids and Maleena, her maid of honor, wore a full-length white dress sewn with Swarovski crystals provided by the Exquisite Bride in Murrysville, Pennsylvania. Her hair, full despite years of chemotherapy, was swept into a side ponytail. Garish, in a black tuxedo instead of his Army uniform, still wore a buzz cut.
The ceremony was punctuated by pauses so Stipkovits, who was on dialysis, could catch her breath and dab at her tears.
Guests didn’t seem worried at the reception when Stipkovits fell after Garish playfully pushed a piece of red velvet cake toward his new wife’s face. She quickly got up. Her father said, “This is the most energetic I’ve seen her in quite some time.”
Stipkovits and Garish had already endured more than most married couples. Before the wedding, Stipkovits told Garish, “When we say our vows, the only thing we’ll have left to accomplish is till death do us part.”
A DJ played “Because You Loved Me” by Celine Dion for the first dance. The lyric “You were my strength when I was weak / You were my voice when I couldn’t speak” had onlookers in tears while Stipkovits and Garish held each other.
***
Editor’s note: A day before the couple’s two-month wedding anniversary, Stipkovits died at home, surrounded by her family, with Garish holding her hand.
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