When Jason’s family learned that his grade IV glioblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer, had spread into his cerebral spinal fluid, he knew he needed to act fast to make the most of the last few months he had left to live.
Jason Halbert, 51, was diagnosed in April, but in October leaned that his life expectancy had gone from a little over a year to just a few months.
That meant Jason, his wife Nicole, and his two daughters had to think and talk about mortality, and work out exactly how they wanted to spend their final months together.
Jason had to accept that he wouldn’t live long enough to see his daughters get married, grow up, and have kids of their own.
But his daughters had a way that Jason could experience one part of their big life moments.
Kaylee, 18, and Ashlee, 16, decided to wear wedding dresses to stage the first dances at their weddings their father wouldn’t live to see.
On October 14, Jason danced with each of his daughters at Olde Dobbin Station in Montgomery, Texas, in emotional moments captured by photographer Shalonda Chaddock and witnessed by friends and family.
Nicole shared images of the special dances on Facebook, writing: ‘Three weeks ago, we found out the cancer had leaked into his cerebral spinal fluid. When this occurs, it is called Leptomeningeal Disease and has a prognosis of two-three months. Your heart stops, you can’t hear, your breath becomes shallow.
‘How were we supposed to tell our daughters? How were we supposed to plan our future?
‘Jason has always been the most attentive father. He’s never missed any of their events. We have raised two daddy’s girls and I was about to break their hearts. Their future suddenly looked very different.
‘The dreams they had of their daddy walking them down the aisle had come to a screeching halt. The certain songs they’ve played hundreds of times while imagining themselves swirling around a dance floor, in the perfect dress, in the arms of the first man they ever loved, suddenly took on new meaning.
‘In a quiet voice, holding back tears, they asked if they could have “their” dance. Yes, YES! You will have your dance! We create memories, we recreate them, why not PRE-create a moment?’
The family’s friends all stepped up to make sure the moment could happen. Some offered up wedding dresses while others did the girls’ hair and makeup.
The end result was something special.
‘The day of the dance, the sun was shining through gray rain clouds, sunlight mixing with rain showers,’ wrote Nicole. ‘I realized, afterwards, how appropriate the weather was for this day. That is what we’ve been doing through this whole journey, trying to find the light among the darkness, the sunshine in the rain.
‘There was laughter and tears but in the end, there was an everlasting memory. There’s a quote I love “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s learning to dance in the rain.” Our girls and their daddy did just that.’
Alongside the photos, the family also took video of the dances which will be kept tucked away until Ashlee and Kaylee’s wedding days.
They’re sharing their story to raise awareness of glioblastoma and encourage people to live in the moment and love hard.
‘When our girls look back at this chapter, I want them to remember not a journey of death, but a journey of life,’ said Nicole. ‘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.’
Nicole and her daughters plan on getting matching sound wave tattoos of Jason saying: ‘I love you girls’. The dad is also working on making recordings for them to listen to and writing letters they can open on important days of their lives.
The family is raising money through GoFundMe to cover Jason’s medical costs and have a Facebook page where they share updates on his condition.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/29/teenage-sisters-wear-wedding-dresses-first-dances-terminally-dad-11005070/
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