A teen battling kidney cancer died on Valentine’s Day in her husband’s arms — just two days after the young couple fulfilled her dying wish by tying the knot, according to hospital officials.
Lydia Dominguez, 19, died at about 8 a.m. Wednesday after marrying Joshua Ordonez in a hastily arranged ceremony at the El Paso Children’s Hospital, the El Paso Times reports.
“This morning she woke up and said she was hot and she needed to do her hair,” Audrey Garcia, the hospital’s director of marketing, told the newspaper. “So mom put up her hair in a bun. She got a bit weak afterwards and laid down. She turned to look at her husband and smiled. She sat up and gave him the biggest hug. She then laid back down and all her family told her it was OK … she could let go. And in two breaths, she was gone.”
Dominguez, who was first diagnosed with kidney cancer when she was just 15, was also surrounded by her father, mother and other relatives, Garcia said.
Dominguez wore a white dress with red flowers during the ceremony, which was a wedding commitment since a legal marriage license wasn’t available. Robert Warmath, a pastor at Del Sol Church in El Paso, oversaw the nuptials for the couple, who met online in 2017. Dominguez and Ordonez later met for the first time on Thanksgiving, according to the El Paso Times.
Ordonez told KVIA that Dominguez accepted his proposal instantly — after getting emotional.
“She broke out in tears and then said yes,” he told the station.
Ordonez said he and Dominguez were happy until she got sick again in October, when doctors discovered that her cancer had spread to her liver and lungs.
“We just didn’t focus too much on that,” Ordonez continued. “We focused on how we could make each other happy in the days that we had together.”
Dominguez wanted to marry Ordonez for a very simple reason, she told a reporter.
“Because I love him,” she said.