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33-year-old Raul Hinojosa of Amarillo, Texas has been suffering from chronic lymphocytic leukemia and fungal infection of his lungs and throat since 2012.
Although he’s been battling these diseases for four years, his longtime partner, 34-year-old Yvonne Lamas, has been with him years before 2012 since they shared the same zip code in Dimmitt.
So when his palliative care nurse asked Raul what his end-of-life-wishes were, he spoke softly to his nurse’s ear, “I want to marry her. I want her to be mine.”
According to Amarillo Globe-News, Raul is in hospice at Baptist St. Anthony’s Hospital. Yvonne had been visiting him and hasn’t missed a day since Raul stayed in on October 22.
Yvonne said, “He’s very sweet, very generous. He loves my girls. He always wants to help people no matter the situation.”
They first started being romantic with each other after Yvonne’s previous relationship fell apart. Raul asked for Yvonne’s hand in 2007, to which she responded positively. It was the classic love story: he wanted to give her an extravagant life, she only wanted a simple yet happy one.
She continued, “With me, he is very romantic. If I have a bad day, he puts a smile on my face. He is one of those people that if you know him and are feeling down, he will turn a bad day into a good day.”
Raul worked as a maintenance and repair at a Dallas apartment complex. Although he was able to help Yvonne and her three daughters, there was no allotment in the budget that would allow Raul to give Yvonne a fairy-tale wedding.
Raul’s nurse, however, is determined to make his wish come true. She tapped others for help and the rest just followed.
First, Yvonne, accompanied by an ordained hospital chaplain, went to the Potter County courthouse get a marriage application. As soon as she got back to the hospital, they both signed it. Cake was being baked. Bouquets was being prepared. And white sheets were hung up and draped around the room and give it a more ethereal setting, devoid of machinery and beeping monitors.
Raul was able to borrow a suit from the director of critical care services.
“He had never seen me in a dress, and I had never seen him in a suit,” Yvonne said. “I saw him in that suit, and he looked so handsome. I thought, ‘Wow …”
Raul Hinojosa passed away a day and half after he married Yvonne. Amarillo Globe-News cannot put it anyway better:
“He leaves behind the warmth of a hospital determined to fulfill a final wish, a grateful bride, and the reaffirming knowledge that fairy tales need not money, and can happen anytime and anywhere.”
