05/18/2003

Melanie Hanlon Mikaelian and Garo Mikaelian

Rhodes on the Pawtuxet, Cranston

3.29.03

With ten bridesmaids and ten groomsmen, this wedding -- the second one for Melanie Hanlon Mikaelian and Garo Mikaelian -- is huge compared to their first. One year ago to the day, they were married in their West Warwick home with just family and a few friends present.

Melanie, 32, is a singer; Garo, 42, plays drums. They also have real jobs: She works as an administrative assistant at a medical software company; he works in industrial sales. They met in February, 2000, when he joined Odyssey, a band that she was in. They started dating that June, and by August they were a couple. On New Year's Eve the following year, they became engaged. And less than three months later, Garo was operated on for a tumor. It was diagnosed as a very rare form of cancer: thymoma.

Midway through today's ceremony, Garo's addresses his guests:

"On New Year's Eve 2001, I asked Mel to marry me. Two months later, the doctors told her that I didn't have long to live, that she should start making plans. I couldn't believe that I had finally found the woman who completed my life so perfectly, and that now I wouldn't have a life to share with her.

"Well, she did start making plans -- not for my death, but for my life. A day or two after my surgery -- they opened me up, saw that the tumor was large and had already attached to my lung and heart, and closed me back up again, saying it was inoperable -- I told her that I wanted to marry her.

"That night I thought it over, and realized that my request was terribly unfair."

So Garo decided to tell Melanie he didn't mean it. But the next day she showed up with a marriage license and two wedding rings, and, within ten days, she had arranged for him to enter the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. "Mel said, 'It took me my whole life to find you -- I'm not going to let you go now!' " Garo talks about the 1987 Baby Audrey swimming-pool accident in which a four-year-old girl was left comatose. Her parents set up a shrine in their Worcester home, and found that the saints wept. People flock to the home, and each pilgrim receives a souvenir -- a Ziploc bag containing a cotton swab that has been dipped in the "weeping oil." It holds a promise of healing.

"So Mel got these tears and anointed me with them. I went into Dana Farber with a 2 to 3 percent chance of survival, and 24 hours later, was told that my cancer was misdiagnosed -- it was not thymoma, but lymphoma. She saved my life. I proclaim my undying love for this woman, and thank God for sending her to me."

There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Luckily, the two mothers had come prepared with plenty of tissues to distribute to all of the ten bridesmaids seated behind them.