Celebrant of weddings, funerals, anything

Life’s experiences, including being put through the wringer of cancer and surviving, trained Robyn Wagner for her mission now as a voluntary hospital chaplain, finding hope and light in the darkest of moments

Bulletin

AS Robyn Wagner pronounced the couple husband and wife, she struggled to hold back tears.

All weddings are emotional, but the beautiful bride before her – a mother to two boys – was terminally ill. And celebrant Robyn knew it was only a matter of time before she would be called upon again, this time for the funeral of Hayley Taylor, just 34 years

old.

But ever the professional, she focused on the joy of the wedding party and the beauty of the ceremony on Burleigh Hill. And when she led the memorial for Hayley just months later, she drew on the happy memories of that toorecent wedding, focusing on the gift of love that lived on.

The Parkwood grandmother has made a career out of celebrations, from marriages to birthdays to anniversaries … but she refuses to be paid for the work closest to her heart.

While she says it is the least she can do, it is also not the only thing she does.

As a volunteer chaplain and spiritual carer at Gold Coast University Hospital, she spends her time with those who do not necessarily have much left – not just visiting palliative care patients, but performing weddings on the ward.

And as a former cancer patient herself, she knows how to find hope and light in even the darkest of moments.

“It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do, but life trained me for this job,” she says.

“I’ve had my own hard times, I’ve been given that medical diagnosis, I’ve lived with that fear and I want to ease it for others. Sometimes that’s through visiting patients in the ward, listening to them and offering what comfort I can. And sometimes it’s by fulfilling their wish for a wedding. It’s an honour to perform that role.

“A hospital ward is not the venue that any bride dreams of, but we work so hard to make it something beautiful. I did a wedding this year with a young bride from palliative care at Robina

Hospital. She was going down fast so we had to pull it together quickly – the staff decorated the garden with an arch, there was a cake, amazing flowers … it was so beautiful, and she hung on for another six weeks. Sometimes it’s such a boost to the spirit that it gives you more time.

“It’s not easy to do a wedding like that because it is so emotional, but I try to put that to one side. I want to focus on the fact that this is a celebration of love that will not die.

“I don’t ignore the terminal diagnosis, but I don’t dwell on it either. At the end of the day, none of us knows what tomorrow will bring.

“If I’m called again for the funeral, I’m so grateful to share that connection with the family and friends there. It’s a real journey.”

While Robyn worked as a corporate PA for decades, she found herself called to be a celebrant eight years ago – a role that took on new meaning after she was diagnosed with cancer in 2012.

After receiving treatment for head and neck cancer, she was given the all-clear after five years, only to then be diagnosed with lung cancer two years ago.

“That first diagnosis turned my life around,” she says.

“It all started with a lump under my jaw. It didn’t hurt but a biopsy showed it was a secondary cancer. They never could find the primary cancer so they treated my head and neck with a lot of radiation. It was scary to know there was another mystery cancer somewhere but I was determined to get on with my life.

“It was a wake-up call to stop and pause and reassess my life. Someone will always have a better house and car than me – and that stuff just doesn’t matter. For me, my life became about feeling good about myself. That’s why I get so much more satisfaction from gifting a wedding on the hospital ward than presenting a huge, elaborate wedding, as much fun as that is.

“I recovered and my husband and I wrote out our bucket list and started travelling. It was while we were on this incredible trip through Israel that I just had this almost spiritual feeling that something wasn’t right.

“It turned out I had lung cancer and they had to remove half my lung. That was two years ago.

“Right after that, my husband was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer as well.

“We’ve been together for almost 40 years and our friends said that we do everything together, even getting cancer. But the most amazing thing is that we’ve both survived and are now cancer free.”

Indeed, Robyn says her life has been blessed, not despite those three cancer diagnoses – but because of them. She says it was surviving those illnesses that inspired her to volunteer at the hospital, and her own story has since brought hope to the hopeless.

“I know that not every patient will have a happy ending like mine and my husband’s, but I think simply having hope is part of happiness itself.

“My husband’s recovery really was nothing short of a miracle. He was given a short timeline to live and they hammered him with as much chemo and radiation as he could take, but there was one tumour in his lung that nothing could reach. And both his lungs were just riddled with cancer.

“Yet after six months, the radiologist looked at his scans and was just dumbfounded. It was all gone. All of it. He couldn’t explain it, but our entire cancer journey has been filled with inexplicable events.”

Robyn says it was while being treated for her first cancer that she had an almost out-of-body experience.

Immobile on the table as radiation was blasted at her head and neck, she was overcome by a sensation of peace.

“When you have radiation on your neck, they have to strap you down to the table, you cannot move. Your face is covered except for slits for your eyes and mouth. I was