The Ceremony, Wedding Night, and Reception

All of our Granville Inn plans, well most of them, were undone by the weather. One of our claims to fame is making the most out of a bad situation. Now I describe it in a headline format: “State Shuts Down for Monnett-Westbrook Wedding.” It wasn’t that hard for me, my only consequences beyond it being cold, were calling the Granville Inn, getting them to agree to a reception only event a week later at no deposit cost, and not having my side of the family, parents nor sisters, at our ceremony.

The state, Ohio, was shut down for three days because of the blizzard of ’78 and not because of our wedding. We decided to go ahead and get married as scheduled even though it had to be at a completely different venue, one we could violate the no non-essential travel rule to get to without likely arrest. That venue happened to be Marilyn’s parent’s place as it had the largest contingent of attendees, including Marilyn, already there. I didn’t have to do anything to get it prepared and so cannot fully appreciate or describe the scramble they must have gone through. All I had to do was just show up and that is about the extent of my memory as well. I was and still am walking on air.

Thank goodness we have some poor quality pictures to remind me. They even scrambled together a multilayer wedding cake. This allowed us to practice our cake smashing for the official reception, with my family in attendance, the week later. We needed the practice. We both had too small of pieces and were far too polite, not only out of concern for each other but also where the crumbs would have gone, on her mother’s light carpet. (Marilyn let me be dainty with my second piece at the Granville Inn the week later before she fully crammed her oversized piece onto my face only partially hitting my large mouth. Since I am writing this I can exaggerate, regardless of how little.)

After the ceremony and after sharing cake and drinks with the guests who could make it, we got ready for our wedding night. You have to remember that a blizzard is snow and wind accompanied with a rapid drop in temperature to fully appreciate our wedding night. First, Marilyn dressed for the weather in fancy red underwear, long johns, and we went to a local Marriott rather than my cold apartment. (There were actual icicles inside the apartment.) It turned out that Marriott didn’t have the icicle problem because they kept the humidity down by reducing the interior temperature to close to freezing. This also meant that whatever food they served in their restaurant arrived cold regardless of how high they heated it to achieve the partial cooking.

But we didn’t care. We were married. And whatever else the cold weather may have ruined, it didn’t ruin our night. Let me just say that it was great cuddling weather.

Our party at the official reception was too small to reserve the entire restaurant but I truly don’t remember if there were any other diners. Marilyn and I certainly felt like we had just gotten married. Our “honeymoon” period wouldn’t end for quite a while, if indeed it ever did, but definitely wasn’t over in just one week. The nicest thing about being married was that now if she fell asleep on me, I didn’t have to wake her up so she could go back to her place. Her place was now my place. I always enjoyed watching her sleep but probably not as much as she enjoyed sleeping. (But, I digress.)

In addition to not remembering other diners, I don’t remember what we ate besides the cake for dessert. That was good so we saved the top to be consumed on our first anniversary, also the subject of another topic.

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Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.

Pre-wedding honeymoon: Dining (where I ask her to marry me)

After a number of dates consisting mostly of dining and drinking, the opportunities for special things to do in Columbus Ohio were limited, I decided to create that special opportunity. She had already confided to me that this time in Columbus was just a stop over for her true destination of Phoenix. So I talked her into joining me for a grand vacation whose first portion would be job hunting in Phoenix.

While I also put my “resume” on the market, Marilyn was the only one who had any actual interviews. After a couple days of that, the real vacation portion began, which is really an unfair characterization. Marilyn took me all over Phoenix. We visited desert museums, Frank Lloyd Wright houses, and even hiked up Squaw Peak.

We had reservations at the Grand Canyon and at Purgatory, a ski resort in Southwestern Colorado, and we did some fantastic things, which I will get to in another entry, but even here a lot of my memories are of our dining (and drinking). They were special.

The first special place was at L’Orangerie, The Orange Room, at the Arizona Biltmore. While I didn’t realize it at the time, her menu didn’t have any prices. (Later I would learn how great this actually was as she always took special care to be “reasonable.”) While the food was good, the highlight of the evening was the after dinner drink, a brandy laced coffee that the server flamed and poured between cups that were at least three feet apart without spilling a drop. We didn’t know how it would be served. We were just intrigued by the name, Café Xocatilla. We also went to the top of the Hyatt and rotated around showing a cityscape that could actually be seen as the typical high-rise construction hadn’t yet blocked the views.

At the Grand Canyon we had such great service that we both remembered the server’s name, George. It was here that we both ate snails for the first time. Marilyn discreetly pointed out that Escargot was snail just so I didn’t embarrass myself when they came out. And, they did come out in their shells so hot that we needed the little snail tongs and little snail fork and lots of cooling before we could eat them, at least the second one did. The best thing about orders of snails are that they come they have more butter than snail. (The snails were a compromise to avoid oysters, particularly raw oysters. They came later and are part of another story.)

On the way to skiing, after the Grand Canyon, we stopped at a roadside diner. Marilyn hadn’t gotten to the stage of “I’ll just have some of yours,” and we were both pretty hungry so we ordered two of what we thought was a taco, one for each of us. The waiter asked us if we were sure and we should have taken that for the clue it was. What came out wasn’t two tacos but rather two piled high 10-inch pizzas. Needless to say we didn’t eat all of it, in fact, we ate no more than half of each. Since we were on the road, we didn’t even take a doggy bag.

The ski resort where we had reservations didn’t have snow so we were able to make reservations at Crested Butte, half a state away by crow and further by roads that had to skirt mountains. But if this hadn’t happened, we would have missed two other great dining experiences and maybe a proposal. (The ski resort didn’t return my deposit.)

On the way to Crested Butte we passed through several great little towns. One, either Ouray or Silverton only had one place to eat but that eating was, again, memorable. The trout we both ordered was perfectly done and tasted great, however, Marilyn sent hers back for some surgery. Both of them came out with their heads left on. Marilyn didn’t mind my fish staring at me, but refused to eat something she felt was staring at her.

Then finally in Crested Butte, we ate at the Alpen Haus, more than once. Not only was the food good, but also this early in the ski season there weren’t that many other options. Of course, after the first time, we didn’t want to risk finding something worse. It was the second time dining there that I “popped” the question. Maybe I wasn’t as clear as I should have been or maybe it was the two bottles of wine, but not only did she not say yes, not only did she not say no, and not only did she not say maybe or I’ll think about it or ask me if I had truly just asked her to marry me, she didn’t say anything. In point of fact I don’t remember using the exact words, “Will you marry me?” but I do remember telling her that I couldn’t see spending the rest of my life with anyone but her. I didn’t press because at least it wasn’t “no.” (She obviously did answer eventually, but that is also another story.)

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Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.

I meet Marilyn

I have yet to find a picture of Marilyn as I first met her. This one is of her in her college days, before I met her. Many of my entries will have pertinent pictures, but I didn't want to have this first "memory" not to have any.

It wasn’t long after I told my middle sister that I didn’t have any idea about how I was going to meet anyone, let alone someone special, that I walked into the local executive’s secretary’s office to get change for a vending machine and saw Marilyn. She was dressed in a black pantsuit with a white blouse and a black ribbon loosely tied in a bow as a tie. She was the one who actually gave me the change as she was being trained to temporarily replace the boss’ secretary the following week.

I don’t think I said more than thanks. This was not the “meeting,” this was just the first time in my life that I saw her. She obviously made an impression. The meeting happened a week later at the end of her temporary assignment.

I did something I rarely did and to my recollection never did after this time during my whole life with Marilyn, I went to an after work-socializing event. She was there. This time we talked. We talked the whole time we were there. I can’t remember what I said or what she said but I know I really liked what I heard. I was even more impressed when a friend of hers, who also worked at Xerox with me, couldn't pull her away. She gave Marilyn an out but Marilyn stayed talking with me.

Part of the reason for my faulty memory of the details is undoubtedly because we were drinking. It was a bar, well T. G. I. Friday’s, after all. I can’t remember what I was drinking but it was probably beer or something like rum and coke. I wasn't and still am not much of a drinker. She drank peppermint schnapps with beer chasers. Since we "met" in a bar, this made a good story whenever I could work it into the conversation, which often went like this: "How did you two meet?" "Marilyn and I met in a bar."

While our drinks were spread over a long time of talking, there was an effect. So much so that even though I did not get her phone number or address, I convinced her that she should allow me to follow her home to make sure she got there safely. She took off in her VW Beetle with me following behind in my 280Z. I followed her all the way to her parent’s house, watched her pull in, and drove on to my own apartment.

If she hadn’t come back to temp for another secretary, this time for a month, I would never been able to take it to the next step: actually dating.

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Marilyn lost her life to cancer but was able to truly "live" until the very end due to a lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto-Medtech. It is due to the "living" he provided Marilyn and through his suggestion and connection with Saskia Thiadens of the National Lymphedema Network that the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund exists. It needs other people's help to remain a living memorial of Marilyn. Please help other people receive the gift of living by donating to the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund. Thank you.

Coming Soon, September 23, 2008 (Prologue)

I bought a blank leather bound journal for the memorial/open house for the attendees to write their happy memories of Marilyn. While others memories may find their way transcribed into this blog, so far I have made just one entry in it. I even carried it around for a month before I decided to do it this way, writing it out in a Word document. I started carrying it after a somewhat tearful conversation with my oldest daughter who pointed out that writing something would be a good way for Marilyn’s grandchildren yet to be born to get to know their grandmother.

My problem is all my happy memories end up being bitter sweet so I had a certain writer’s block to writing them in a “happy” memory book.

Another friend suggested that I start a blog, this one, as a way to write all these memories and potentially attract readers who could then help keep the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund, well, funded. While I was enamored with this idea, I didn’t want it to be a maudlin daily recounting of my current day filled with missing. But it does allow me to be more complete by not binding myself to only happy memories or excluding the bittersweet portions. (Read my description of asking her to marry me in a future posting.)

However, since I truly don’t know what I want to write when, I am writing individual items according to topic without strict regard to chronology. Other than this prologue, I will start posting individual topics starting September 23, 2008, ten days after my son's wedding.

Thus my compromise, I have decided to write a collection that I can edit and select from to put in this blog. The Word document can be a better form factor for eventually giving to my grandchildren so they can know of the grandmother they will never meet.

During the Tim Russert memorial it was mentioned that he consoled a friend who lost a son that if he had been offered the choice of 17 years with such a great person he would have jumped at it. I feel the same way about the 30 years I had with Marilyn. However, if I had known it would have only been 30 years I would have made a point of enjoying them more. As it is, I have many great memories.

Doyle Westbrook
Loving husband of Marilyn

As to the "why" of the blog:

As a result of cancer, surgery for cancer, conditions present at birth, specific lymphatic diseases, ... many people suffer from lymphedema. People who cannot afford to do anything but "live with it," and there are many, often hide away their impairment as it can be as disfiguring as it is debilitating. When Marilyn's cancer created lymphedema in her left leg so severe that she was bedridden, a living saving lymphedema garment from Don Kellogg, inventor and founder of Telesto Medtech, not only restored her mobility after wearing it for only a half day, it allowed her to attend her daughter's wedding, join her family and her daughter's new in-laws at the Thanksgiving table, and meet her son's fiancee's mother. It made the last few months of her life living months rather than just waiting for a death that would have come even sooner than it did had she not been truly living during them.

Even though there are amazing treatments available that can restore a measure of normalcy, due to about half the states not considering these treatments as medical devices and the insurance companies following suit, people are left to suffer in silence and frequently alone. In Marilyn's name and memory, this has become our cause. With Saskia Thiadens and the National Lymphedema Network, a special fund to help people who cannot otherwise afford these garments has been established, the Marilyn Westbrook Garment Fund.

If funding were to be left to my resources alone, it would be too little help and the memory of Marilyn far too short. Please use the links embedded in this posting to donate to this worthy cause. The National Lymphedema Network (NLN) is a 501 (c) 3 organization. Donations to the NLN, including those designated to the Marilyn Westbrook Fund, are fully tax deductible to the limits of your tax circumstances.