On April 11, Baptist North Mississippi colleagues turned the fifth floor lobby into a wedding chapel for Annie Turner Nicholson, a terminal cervical cancer patient, and her fiancé, Charles Nicholson.
The couple has been together for 28 years, and Annie had turned down Charles’ previous proposal. But this time was different.
“He had been so good to me all those years. He asked me again, and I said yeah,” Annie said.
After becoming engaged, Charles wanted to make wedding plans and wanted to know when Annie would be discharged. But because of Annie’s diagnosis, it was impossible to establish a firm date. During a multidisciplinary team meeting, fifth floor head nurse Brittney Goolsby shared the wedding wish.
“The team took off with it,” Goolsby said. “There were so many people involved.”
Hospital colleagues made all the arrangements in one day. The gift shop provided ribbon and tulle for a veil, and staff purchased a shawl for the bride to wear, as well as a bouquet and a boutonniere for the bride and groom. Colleagues even asked a county courthouse employee to bring the couple’s marriage license, which the employee did ‒ after work ‒ arriving at the hospital at 7 p.m.
As an iPod and speakers ‒ borrowed from the hospital’s gift shop ‒ played wedding music, the bride made her entrance. Hospital chaplain Joe Young performed the ceremony.
The colleagues’ efforts meant a great deal to the couple.
“We are still talking about how nice it was, just the way (the staff) put their hearts into it,” said Charles. “It was just uplifting, especially for her.”
After exchanging vows, the couple enjoyed a strawberry wedding cake – Annie’s favorite – prepared especially for them by the hospital’s cafeteria staff. Colleagues even gave the couple two wedding presents, a wooden cross for both of them and a necklace just for Annie.
A few days after the ceremony, Annie was transferred to a transitional health care facility, where her Baptist nurses still visit her. The couple remains appreciative of everything Baptist North Mississippi’s team did for them.
“I’ll never be able to be grateful enough,” Charles said. “They were just wonderful people at the hospital.”
The experience left its mark on Baptist colleagues, as well.
“To me it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. I haven’t seen anything like this happen in my career,” said Goolsby. “I don’t know; I just was so happy. I felt so good.”