Joan DeLevie (JD): I saw this guy with a head of black hair and white, white, teeth and
dark eyes and honest to God, my heart started to like beat. We sort of
caught each other’s eye and then he came over. And I said: ‘This be the
guy.’ We started dating and then we were engaged about a month later.
And this is exactly how he proposed: ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about
marriage.’ (laughter)

I said, ‘What? (laughter), what did you say?’

He says, ‘Oh I’ve been thinking a lot about marriage.’ And he said, ‘Do
you want to get married?’

I said, ‘yes.’ Then it was problematic because his parents were against
me and my parents were against him. He had a hole in his heart. My
parents insisted that his parents send them the x-rays so they could
bring the x-rays to their doctor to make sure that he wasn’t going to
die in about a minute. (laughter)

Sharon DeLevie (SD): How has your life been different than you imagined it?

JD: My feeling was that I would get married, have two to three children
and be bored. Whereas being married to Daddy has been a very exciting
journey and way different than I thought it would be.

SD: Tell me about Daddy.

JD: Daddy has no hair anymore, his teeth are still white, and he
personifies the word kind. I have lung cancer, stage four, and he’s
been my caretaker for a year and a half, and everything runs so smoothly
because of him. I mean if you know Ari you know that he’s the one who
you want to take care of you if your sick like this. He was probably
the luckiest thing that’s every happened to me and believe me it’s luck.