They were married for 10 incredible hours.
Marriage is meant to last a lifetime. Our wedding day is meant to be just the first of many special days, weeks and months, with the excitement of a lifetime together to look forward to.
But what if you got married knowing it would only last 10 incredible hours?
In one of the most beautiful wedding stories we have ever read, a 29-year-old cancer patient has married the love of his life in an incredibly emotional ceremony, just hours before dying of terminal cancer.
Rowden Go Pangcoga was engaged to marry Leizl when he was told he had stage 4 liver cancer. But still, he was determined to go through with the wedding. It was his dying wish.
Shortly after his diagnosis, wedding preparations were rushed through and 12 hours later, it took place in a hospital in Manilla in the Philippines. It was "like a heartbreaking fairytale," Rowden's brother Hasset said. "Unable to take him outside the hospital, we brought the church to him."
Rowden was in a hospital bed for the duration of the ceremony, but his face when he sees his bride Leizl enter the room is amazing. What makes this even more tragic is that the couple had a daughter, who held tightly onto her dying father's hand as her parents exchanged vows.
The couple gave each other rings, shared their first kiss as husband and wife and then spent the next 10 hours together before he died.
His brother Hasset Go filmed the ceremony that took place earlier this month and has now posted it on YouTube. We can't stop watching it and we're not the only ones. It has been viewed 4 million times since being uploaded.
It makes us feel incredibly lucky. We hope you're fortunate enough to feel the same.
Images courtesy of YouTube.
You can watch the full video here:
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