1/2 Lindy died a day after she married Manuel (photo: private collection).
Manuël Langenhuijsen (46) wears his wedding suit at Lindy’s funeral on Friday. “She is also wearing her wedding dress,” he says on Tuesday. Last Saturday, the two got married head over heels in the chapel of the hospital in Den Bosch. A day earlier, Manuel had received a phone call: Lindy (36) was dying. She passed away on the evening of Christmas Day.
Both met each other twelve years ago at a party. “It was carnival and she didn’t like me at all. Way too old,” he chuckles. A year later, the two met again. The flame hit the pan. He could never have imagined that his ‘young slender brat’ would squeak out so quickly.
“Three years ago we heard she wouldn’t make it to 40.”
“I knew she had a muscle disease, but it was not fatal,” Manuel begins his story. I also knew that at 21 she had suffered a heart attack due to another condition that causes blood clots in the bloodstream. She later suffered a cardiac arrhythmia from that heart attack. All three conditions are not fatal in themselves, but together they are.”
Three years ago, the couple from Schijndel were told that Lindy would not make it to 40. “We didn’t see that coming,” says Manuel. “Lindy never gave up. It’s just the way it is, she said.”
“She had already divided her things, I’ll get her wedding ring.”
Resolute as she was, she already started planning her funeral. “She insisted on a white box and then everyone could leave a message on it. She had also already divided her things,” Manuël continues. “She had already distributed her jewelry and clothes and I would get her wedding ring and her dog.”
Just because she went so diligently about her imminent death doesn’t mean she expected it to happen so soon. “We planned to get married on Friday, January 13,” says Lindy’s new husband. “I was also born on a Friday the 13th and we thought that was funny. It didn’t occur to us that she wouldn’t make it to this date.”
“Lindy didn’t want to stay in the hospital for fear she would never come home.”
Last week Lindy suffered from fluid behind lungs that made it difficult for her to breathe. “That had happened before and was quickly solved by taking diuretics. This time it didn’t work and she had to stay in the hospital, to Lindy’s horror”, it sounds a bit embarrassed from Manuel’s mouth.
“Lindy always thought: if I stay in the hospital, I won’t get out,” Manuël continues. Nobody expected that she would not make it to the end of the week halfway through last week. “So then that phone call came. Since then my life has been turned upside down. But so nice that we were able to fulfill her greatest wish to get married.”
“She died Christmas Day in my arms, so glad I could be there for her.”
After the script of their marriage, Manuel is now working on the script of her funeral. “She died in my arms on Christmas Day. It’s my saddest and also the best memory because I was able to be there for her. I will cherish her wedding ring forever.”
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