On December 23, 2016 David Mosher proposed to his girlfriend, Heather Lindsay, during an evening carriage ride. Just hours previously, Heather, a school psychologist, had been diagnosed with breast cancer. “She didn’t know I was going to propose that night,” David said. “But I said to myself, she needs to know she’s not going to go down this road alone.” When their carriage passed under a street light, David got down on one knee and asked Heather to marry him.

The couple had met roughly a year and a half previously at a swing dance class they were both attending. “We were just kind of inseparable after that.” Unfortunately, the newly engaged couple would not have the long future they both envisioned. Just a few days after David popped the question, Heather’s cancer was identified as triple negative, one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer.

“We would go to Dana Farber weekly, we were going to natural doctors. Our life became consumed with cancer,” David said. The all-encompassing hunt for a cure for Heather was unsuccessful, and in September 2017, Heather and David learned that the cancer had spread to Heather’s brain. She was put on life-support and told that she would be unlikely to live to see October.

Heather, however, had different plans. Her wedding date was set for December 30, 2017, and Heather was determined to live to see it. “She was tough,” David said. “Anyone else would have given up a long time ago. The doctors even said ‘we don’t know how she’s still here.’”

At the doctors’ recommendation, David and Heather moved the ceremony up by two weeks because Heather was unlikely to survive until December 30. On December 22, 2017, the Moshers were married in Saint Francis chapel in front of their family and friends. Heather was weak enough that she struggled to articulate her vows, but she persevered and successfully became David’s wife as she had been dreaming of for nearly a year.

Christina Karas, one of the bridesmaids, captured Heather’s determination and defiant celebration on camera. “We were losing her as we were all standing there, thinking, to hold on to this, because this was the last she had to give,” Christina said, “The last words she spoke were her vows.”

Eighteen short hours later, Heather Mosher passed away on December 23, 2017, one year to the day from when David proposed. “She’s my great love, and I’m going to lose her, but I’m not losing her forever.” David said. “I saw her in a lot of pain and she didn’t give up until she married me. It is so humbling that someone could love me like that.”

Heather’s funeral was held on December 30, her original wedding date, at Plantsville Congregational Church, the same church where she and David were originally supposed to be married. Despite the agony of loss, David refuses to give up and plans to channel his late wife’s defiant spirit. “Heather said, ‘I want to keep fighting’ so that’s the mantra I’m picking up,” David said, “She was able to fight ‘til the end, I’m going to fight until my end.”