ANDERSON COUNTY — Vernon McAlister had a dream last week about the woman he has loved nearly all his life.
His wife Sue was in a room decorated with lace — “the most beautiful, beautiful lace” — and she stood near a window, bathed in sunlight and dressed in a lace gown and veil, waiting for him to marry her again.
After that dream, he was peaceful, sure of what he wanted to do next.
He asked the nurses at Hospice of the Upstate to help him stay alive a few more days. He wanted to celebrate his 72nd anniversary with his bride.
On Sunday, a day after their actual anniversary, the McAlisters celebrated their union by renewing their vows.
This time, they were not nervous.
She is 87 and he is nearly 93.
They have grown up together.
They have raised five children together.
Two years ago, they survived her battle with stomach cancer.
And still, they hold on to each other.
“He has taken care of me my whole life,” she said. “He has loved me and respected me and cherished me the way he said he would when I was just a young girl and he was just a young man. There is nothing to be nervous about when you are walking toward the person you love with your whole heart.”
In her pink dress and white veil, the bride stayed in a room separate from her groom and was shielded by the hospice staff. They didn’t want any bad luck.
Just a few feet away, her husband, from his room, was getting help with straightening his navy tie.
“Where is my bride?” he called out. “Where is my bride?”
Soon, they gathered with their friends and family in the dining room of the Rainey Hospice House.
And though he was in a hospital bed, Vernon McAlister’s eyes lit up when he saw her walking down the aisle. The first time they did this, he was almost 21, and she was 15 and a half.
“My father told me she would make a good wife,” he said. “Oh, I couldn’t have imagined how right he was. She is just purely wonderful. She is a jewel.”
They met on his father’s farm in Central.
Sue and her mother picked cotton on that farm, and one day, her mother encouraged her to go to Vernon in the field and talk to him.
“It was that beautiful smile that got to me,” she said. “It still does.”
The couple lived in Central for 40 years before moving to Anderson.
Nearly 30 years ago now, he retired from his work with the agronomy program at Clemson University and concentrated on church work and volunteering.
“We have not always had an easy life,” she said. “But if you put God first, you can endure and your marriage can endure.”
All of the couple’s children —their sons Tony, Phil, Van and Don McAlister and daughter Anita Floyd — were able to attend the ceremony.
“They are a testament to love,” Floyd said. “It is amazing how they support each other. And it is amazing how that dream of her has kept him going. That’s why we thought this ceremony was so important. That dream of her is all he has talked about.”
Doctors believe Vernon McAlister has just days left to live. He broke his hip recently, and doctors have told his children that it is a fatal injury for someone his age.
He has been in the hospice house for about three weeks. His wife is staying at the Magnolias of Anderson, an assisted-living complex nearby.
But on Sunday, they held hands, side by side.
Sue McAlister’s had trembled as she kissed her husband, cupping his chin and then smoothing his hair. Her husband looked at her with tears in his eyes and a smile on his face.
Family friend Bill French, who performed the ceremony, said a marriage like the McAlisters’ should be held up as an example for the world.
“When you took those vows all those years ago, when you said, ‘We will share our joys and sorrows as we walk through life together’ … no one could have known how long that walk would be,” French said. “You have fulfilled your promise, and God is smiling.”
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