So I received this email forward from a well-intentioned though completely clueless family member. As my mouse was hovering over the delete button, I decided to take a second look at it, because there are actually some interesting things being said in this email about how we view women, especially young pretty women, in relation to marriage.
So the jist of it is, “Katie” is engaged and dying of cancer but is going ahead and having a gigantic wedding anyway.
The caption underneath reads:
Even in pain and dealing with her organs shutting down, with the help of morphine, Katie took care of every single wedding planning.
Her dress had to be adjusted several times due to Katie’s constant weight loss.
This seemed horrifying to me. The girl is dying and she’s spending her last minutes booking a DJ and going to the tailor? The point is supposed to be that she’s being heroic, but to me this seems like straight-out masochism.
We also find out:
The other couple in this picture are Nick’s parents, very emotional with the wedding and of course to see their son marrying the girl he fell in love when he was an adolescent.
Marrying your childhood sweetheart= Fairytale
And:
Katie died 5 days after her wedding. To see a fragile woman dress as bride with a beautiful smile makes you think… Happiness is always there within reach, no matter how long it lasts…..lets enjoy life and don’t live a complicated life. Life is too short.
There’s a lot going on in that paragraph. Why is seeing this woman, who is in extreme physical and probably emotional pain, smile her way though a wedding reaffirm that happiness is out there? What’s really being said is “Look, if this dying girl can get married you could be happy too if you just live simply.” And to break it down for the girls out there, living simply=getting married.
I should clarify I don’t know if these are real people, and if they are I fully respect Katie’s choice to get married. But I suspect she and her husband might have a problem with her choice being reduced to a lame “live for the day” anecdote.
If this email is being forwarded to women all over the place, I don’t respect the implication that I should spend my life caring about “simple things” like weddings in case I die tomorrow.
And don’t even get me started on the beautiful dying white girl fetish. Would we have seen these pictures if she was bald or non-causcasion? Probably not.
Thoughts?
June 10, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I disagree. While I can see the whole “happy=get married” I think it is more of a “don’t let anything stop you” story. She could have just laid down and died without anything…but instead she did what she dreamed of doing.
However…
I agree that you would never see her bald or non-white. That is just sad. All kinds of people live for the day and only a few get recognition for it.
And while I see the point of the whole thing (happiness is worth it), I think it would be just as good if you found out she decided to go over seas to one of those places you always talk about seeing but never do (granted she was healthy enough to do it) or go to Africa to help people or something.
Again, dying people do heroic things all the time, this girl getting married isn’t exactly that spectacular…though I am happy she did what made her happy in the end. The only other thing she could have done is just let the cancer take her without even trying.
June 10, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Hi Sandy- good points, maybe I’m just feeling cynical today! I just just wish the thing she didn’t let her illness stop was something besides a wedding, like you said.
June 10, 2009 at 5:14 pm
What would be really amazing would be to give everybody dying from a terminal disease the opportunity to enjoy one last celebration, such as Katie did.
It shouldn’t be limited to engaged-to-be-married, pretty girls with a big budgets.
Doesn’t everyone deserve a terrific bon voyage party, with family members and friends mingling laughter with tears?
At least Katie got to hear herself eulogized.
June 12, 2009 at 10:49 am
I totally deleted the email before even reading it!
June 15, 2009 at 11:09 am
Like the other commenters, my first reaction is to say – great for her, everyone should try to live out their dreams before they die.
That said, my second reaction is to also see this as an example of how society romanticizes, fantasizes, and holds marriage up to an unbelievable high pedestal – one which is deemed to be perfect, fulfilling, romantic, and can’t really be lived up to.
The fairy tale dream right? What marriage can really live up to it?
August 28, 2009 at 10:08 pm
you people are sick color or money does not matter in the end if getting married to her life long love made her happy let it be.