I knew how strange the request was.
I turned it over for two days.
And then a hospital chaplain married us, in Julian’s room, with a nurse and an orderly as witnesses.
I wore a yellow sweater.
It was not a wedding, not really, and I had nothing bridal to wear, so I wore the sweater I had come in that morning, and it did not matter, because the ceremony was not about appearances.
We had no wedding ring, either.
And so, when the moment came, Julian took a small soda-can pull tab, which he had saved for the purpose from a drink on his tray, and he slipped it gently onto my finger, and it was, absurdly and perfectly, the most meaningful ring I have ever worn.
For the next seven days, I never left his side.
I took a leave from everything else in my life, and I stayed, and I held his hand through every difficult breath, through the long nights and the harder days, as his failing heart slowed and struggled and at last, quietly, stopped.
