A team of doctors and nurses at an Illinois hospital came together to make a longtime dream come true for a father battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer: walking his daughter down the aisle.
Dan Benway’s daughter, Grace Benway, had planned to marry her fiancé, Thomas Decourcey, next month in Colorado. Dan, 66, wanted to attend the out-of-state wedding, but his health had been declining, so the family had to adjust their plans.
“This week, he has just been in a decline, and all the nurses were nice enough to help us plan something,” Grace told NBC 5 Chicago.
In less than 24 hours, staff at Endeavor’s Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, where Dan is receiving treatment, organized an impromptu wedding for Grace and Thomas. They arranged for an officiant and a guitar player for the ceremony, and the bride quickly found a dress at a nearby store.
“It was something we knew was a possibility, and we were just excited to be able to do it,” Grace said of the hospital wedding, according to the Daily Herald. “It means a lot to [my dad].”
Grace and Thomas flew from their home in Golden, Colorado, to Chicago on Wednesday, Sept. 17, and the wedding took place the next afternoon.
A small group of family and friends joined the couple in the hospital’s outdoor butterfly garden, along with doctors and nurses. Dan rolled in his wheelchair and held Grace’s hand as she walked down the aisle.
“I’m a blessed man. I couldn’t be more blessed,” Dan said, thanking everyone who helped make the ceremony happen so quickly, per NBC 5 Chicago.
The hospital’s chaplain, Wilson Angumei, officiated the wedding. He said he believed it was the first wedding at the hospital in his 25 years there.
“I was saying, ‘OK, do you have a priest or pastor or somebody to come over?’ And the father said, ‘How about you?’ ” Angumei recalled to the Daily Herald. “’It would be my honor,’ I told him.”
Dan was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in November 2023. Since then, he has gone through 40 rounds of chemotherapy and a Whipple procedure to remove tumors, according to the Daily Herald. Until April of this year, he was still commuting from Arlington Heights to his job at Chase Bank in downtown Chicago.
Grace described her father as a “fighter,” and Dan said, “I’m trying my best.”
The proud father also shared his happiness for his daughter and new son-in-law.
“They’re meant for each other. A very lucky man to have her. Probably the best I could ask for as a father,” he said, according to the Daily Herald.
