Woman recalls brief marriage to lost love

Teresa Madera D'az of Carson City married her fiancee on Oct. 24. The next day, doctors told her he was going to die.

"They said it could be three hours or three days," Daz said. He died three days later on Oct. 28.

Manuel Padilla, 49, met Daz, 46, six years ago in their native Mazatlan, Mexico, and they fell in love. They wanted to get married but financial difficulties and moving from Mexico to the United States at different times made it impossible.

Finally on Valentine's Day of 1999, he proposed.

"That day he told me that he wanted to marry her because he was in love with her," said Susana Meza, a mutual friend who went with Padilla to buy the engagement ring.

In May, he was diagnosed with leukemia and spent months in and out of the hospital, making it impossible for him to get to his job at the Carson Car Wash and further postponing the wedding.

But Daz did not want to wait any longer.

With the help of nurses and housekeeping personnel in the oncology unit at Washoe Medical Center in Reno, Daz organized a wedding.

Hospital housekeepers went with her to get a dress, cake and the marriage license. Meza helped her dye her hair to the color Padilla liked.

"It was so beautiful," Daz said. The two were married in a traditional Catholic ceremony - as traditional as a hospital room will allow.

Daz said Padilla's outlook was brighter after that day.

"I would catch him looking at me and he would say, 'You're my wife,' and I would say, 'Yes, I'm your wife,'" she related. "I told him we would go home together. I couldn't tell him he was going to die."

Until the end, Daz never told him what the doctors predicted.

"I told him everything was OK. But it wasn't true," she said. "I knew he was dying little by little but I never told him because he would have died faster without the hope."

The last days were bittersweet.

"It was very sad and very lovely those last days," Daz said. "He left very calmly."

Although it was a short marriage, Daz said it was worth it.

"It was always our dream to be together, joined civilly and through the church," she said. "I will always be his wife. I'm going to carry him forever in my heart and I'll never forget him."

Now Daz is left to sort through the memories and find a way to move on. She's not sure what the future holds.

The hospital bills have piled up and money is tight. She may return to Mexico or she may stay.

"I'm fighting to find peace," she said. "Only God knows what I'm going to do."