Following a devastating cancer diagnosis, a father in Texas pre-created touching wedding photos with his teenage girls.
In a post to Facebook, Nicole Halbert explained that her husband Jason was recently given a year left to live after his doctor diagnosed him with grade IV glioblastoma.
Although the specific type of cancer can be treated in an aggressive way, the couple found out weeks ago that it had entered his cerebral spinal fluid, lowering his prognosis, and leaving him with only a few months left to live.
“How were we supposed to tell our daughters?” Halbert wrote on Facebook. “How were we supposed to plan our future?”
Posted by Ashley Wood on Monday, October 7, 2019
Halbert pointed out that their two daughters,18-year-old Kaylee and 16-year-old Ashlee, had always been daddies girls, were devastated when they realized they would never have their first dance with their father.
“The dreams they had of their daddy walking them down the aisle had come to a screeching halt,” she wrote.
“So, I asked them what was most important to them and my oldest said she wanted to have her father/daughter dance that she would have had at her wedding,” Halbert said, according to Fox News. “Mind you, she is only 18 and nowhere near getting married, but she picked out her song with her dad at the age of 7 so this is something that weighed heavily on her.”
You can view some of the photos, taken on October 14 by Shalonda Chaddock, below.
It was April 18, 2019. We got a phone call. "I need you to come in to go over your MRI results, now." A storm had blown…
Posted by Nicole Clowson Halbert on Sunday, October 20, 2019
“The day of the dance, the sun was shining through gray rain clouds, sunlight mixing with rain showers. I realized, afterwards, how appropriate the weather was for this day,” Halbert wrote on Facebook. “That is what we’ve been doing through this whole journey, trying to find the light among the darkness, the sunshine in the rain.”
“When our girls look back at this chapter, I want them to remember not a journey of death, but a journey of life,” Halbert added. “Take the trip, snap the pictures, eat dessert first, go see your friends, play games with your kids, make your days matter! When you live your life surrounded by kindness and love, you have lived your life well.”
In an interview with Faithwire, Halbert credited the family’s strength to their relationship with God.
“Our help comes from the Lord,” Ashley Wood said, according to Faithwire. “So you grab his hand and he leads you out of that pit, into the sunlight and breathes strength directly into your deflated lungs.”