FLYING above Melissa Hassard and Clive Taylor on their special day was a little bird. It soared high above their heads and remained in Rossorry Parish Church for their entire wedding.

 

The couple were tickled by this, particularly as their order of service had a drawing of an opened bird cage on the front. It was, perhaps, a metaphor for a day of feeling free. And as they walked down the aisle as man and wife there were tears of joy and sadness.


That’s because the beautiful bride was suffering from cancer and had achieved her wish to marry her soulmate, a man who promised when she was diagnosed over two years ago that he would stick by her. And he did, right up until her death last Thursday, 10 weeks from their wedding day.


Clive returned to the church on Saturday, along with hundreds of others, including Melissa’s parents Irvine and Fiona, and brother Richard, and his fiancée Janette, to say farewell to his wife. Following the service she was buried in her wedding dress, wearing her wedding ring.


“I loved her with all my heart, she was the best. She was strong, funny, courageous and determined. It is a gap that will never be filled,” Clive told The Impartial Reporter.


“About half an hour before she passed away she did open her eyes, she was probably looking around the room to see who was there. She was so strong right until the very end. But this is not the end for us, I will see her again,” he said.


Melissa, who was 28 years old, was brave and focused on not letting the cruel, unforgiving disease define her. When there was sadness she found optimism, when there were tears she found laughter and when her illness knocked her down, she got up again with a smile. She did that every day since being diagnosed in 2013.


“Her mentality kept us going, and it is keeping us going now. She was never morbid, she never complained. More people said when they met Melissa they couldn’t believe she was sick because she looked so well. I don’t think anyone could have got through it the way she did.


“She was talking a month ago about when she was going to die and I got upset. She said, ‘I am only testing you to make sure you still love me.’ Her sense of humour drove her and that’s what is keeping me going,” explained Clive.


It was her sense of fun that got her through the very many difficult days that she experienced during her short life. 


“There were days when she said she didn’t feel herself, when she looked into the mirror she thought she wasn’t herself. I told her not to worry, I told her not to care what people thought. I said, ‘As l long as I love you it doesn’t matter about anybody else.’ I always thought she looked stunning and a bit more. Even during the chemotherapy she always looked beautiful.”


“I am not strong and the only thing that is keeping me going is thinking about how she would cope, how she would have given off to me if I didn’t cope. If I got emotional she would have told me to ‘tighten up’. When she came into the living room on the morning of the wedding, her father got emotional and she just laughed. That was Melissa.”


“Marrying Melissa was perfect, it was a brilliant day. The rehearsal the day before was tough, I started to cry. The bit in the vows about in sickness and in health, that’s when I broke down. But on the day I told myself that I had to keep going for Melissa,” he said.


Melissa and Clive’s first dance was to Ellie Goulding’s ‘How Long Will I Love You’, a song that encapsulated the couple’s love for each other.


“I could talk about Melissa all day, I’ll talk about her for the rest of my life. We packed more into our four years than some have packed into 40 years,” said Clive, with tears running down his face.


Her mother Fiona says her daughter was always laughing “even at the most inappropriate times.”


“She always wanted to lighten the load. When the doctor told her she had weeks to live. She said, ‘Well, is that so? I’ll just prove you all wrong. You’ll be bringing me a bottle of coke in a gift bag.’ The only thing she worried about was who she was leaving behind. She was worrying about Clive and what would become of him.”


“Two days before the wedding she was taken to hospital suffering from pains. She told the doctor: ‘I’m getting no bloody operation, I am getting married on Thursday.’ The day before the wedding she was sitting in that armchair doing a crossword. ‘Awk, it’ll be all right.’ It was brilliant that she met the love of her life and was getting married to him. The wedding meant everything to her, she ran down the aisle. She couldn’t wait to marry Clive,” she said.


What Melissa didn’t know was when she was diagnosed in 2013 doctors only gave her nine months to live. She didn’t want to know how long she had left.
“She battled on for two and a half years, she didn’t give up because she didn’t know.”


And last Thursday night, Melissa passed away, surrounded by her loving family.


“Watching our daughter, a wife, watching her life slip out of her... our lives will never be the same,” said Fiona.


At her funeral at Rossorry Parish Church on Saturday, The Rev. Dr. Ian Ellis told mourners, including her colleagues from Boots, where she worked for 12 years and where her name remains on the rota, about the “very special” young woman.


“We don’t expect to be celebrating a wedding and then 10 weeks later be saying farewell. But Melissa has inspired people with her courage, her dignity,” he said.


It was a funeral that had just as many laughs as tears as Rev. Ellis shared his experiences of Melissa. “I shall not forget the sight of Melissa coming up the aisle [on her wedding day], arriving at the steps and giving out one of those great ‘Yo’s’ when she got to the top.”


He recalled her “directness” and “quirky witticisms” which he said were all evident from a young age as a pupil at Jones Memorial Primary School, then Enniskillen High School.


“Melissa has completed a most arduous journey, a journey of living with cancer and has completed it in the most remarkable way and borne her illness without complaint. She came through it with the most amazing spirit, a spirit that touched everybody she came into contact with,” he said.


In 2010 Melissa’s baby Ellie was stillborn. It was a personal tragedy that hit her very hard, and as her illness worsened she told her family that she was “going to be with Ellie.”


“That wee baby was perfect in every way. To go through all that, I don’t know how she did it,” said her father Irvin.


“One comfort for us is knowing that she has gone to her wee baby,” added Fiona, recalling, with a smile, the sight of that little bird flying in the church during the wedding.


“This wee bird was in the church and on Melissa’s order of service was a picture of a birdcage with the door open. It flew over the two of them and I think that was wee Ellie, flying up above the two of them,” she said.


Melissa’s family believe that like the bird flying so freely, she too is free, free from an illness that has robbed them of a daughter, granddaughter, sister, and wife. But an illness that was fought tooth and nail and with a smile.