A bride’s final wish
Natalie Paterson-Green had walked this stretch of hallway a thousand times. But never with hundreds of eyes on her.
With every eye in the room sparkling with tears, she made her way through the crowd to the living room at the family home between Wallacetown and Ryal Bush, in Southland.
With her mother Gail and father Ralph on either side and a beaming smile, Natalie approached a man so excited he could barely stand still.
‘‘I was jumping up on my toes. I was so excited. She looked amazing,’’ Caleb Paterson-Green remembers, fighting back tears.
A man who had twice survived cancer, Caleb understood better than anyone the pain his soon-tobe wife was in as she made her way down the aisle.
If she had listened to doctors’ predictions, Natalie would have lost her two-year battle with cervical cancer several days earlier. But she was never one to show pain, and she wasn’t ready to go.
Not yet.
‘‘For that one day she was so much better,’’ her sister Tammy Paterson said.
‘‘I can’t believe she managed to walk . . . she even got up to dance with Caleb and then with Mum and Dad.
‘‘She was so happy. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It was incredible, better than any movie. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. One final, beautiful, beautiful memory of Nat.’’
Natalie lost her battle with cervical cancer, surrounded by friends and family last Friday, a month after marrying Caleb.
Described by friends and family as ‘‘beautiful inside and out’’, the couple met about seven years ago at a party in Dunedin.
She was by his side through his battles with thyroid cancer in 2011 and testicular cancer a year later. He had not long been given the allclear when Natalie was diagnosed in 2013.
‘‘When she was going through chemo I could actually say to her, ‘I know how you feel’,’’ Caleb said. ‘‘But if she was having a bad day, she didn’t want to ruin anyone else’s day.
‘‘She just wanted to keep soldiering on with a big smile and she was there through all of it when I had cancer. She was always more worried about us than herself.’’
After being given two days to live, Natalie defied doctors and kept fighting for more than a month.
‘‘She just endured incredible pain near the end,’’ Tammy said. ‘‘I think her positivity helped a lot.’’
She also loved the outdoors, with some of her final days spent relaxing in the sun and dipping her toes in the water at Bluff.