Grammy Winner musician Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad, author of the bestselling cancer memoir "Between Two Kingdoms," revealed on CBS Sunday Morning that they secretly got married in February.
The couple has been together for eight years. They decided to tie the knot after Jaouad was recently diagnosed with leukemia for a second time. She told CBS correspondent Jim Axelrod that they got married the day before she was admitted to the hospital to undergo a bone marrow transplant.
Not a hasty decision
According to Jaouad, getting married was not a hasty decision. She said they knew they wanted to get married from the first week they started dating. She said it was the first time that Batiste brought the topic of marriage to her, which meant they had eight years to prepare. Jaouad also said that her diagnosis was not the reason for the proposal.
When Jaouad got her diagnosis, Batiste revealed that he had planned to propose to her for months. However, it has taken him a year to design the ring. He told her that the timing of her diagnosis had nothing to do with the wedding plans. He also assured her that her diagnosis did not change anything. Her diagnosis made it more apparent that he wanted to commit to the two of them together.
Batiste told Alxerod that the whirlwind ceremony would not interrupt their wedding plan. He thinks that it is just a bump in the road. He also told Axelrod that the marriage was also an act of defiance that the darkness would try to overtake, but they just had to turn on the light, focus on it, and hold on to it.
Pop culture reports that when the couple realized that they had this tiny opportunity before the bone marrow transplant, they decided to "go for it."
A friend helped them get their marriage license, and they got it at the very last minute, just as Jaouad was in the OR getting a catheter placed in her chest.
Walking to a bone marrow on cloud nine
In the interview, Jaouad told Axelrod that it was a "tiny, beautiful, little ceremony." They used bread ties as rings as they had no formal rings.
According to her, the day was "absurd" as nurses and surgeons were around. They had this computer, and she was in a hospital gown. But they made it happen, and it was nothing like they had imagined for her. Four people were present at the wedding, and it was very private.
On her way to the bone marrow unit, she said she was on cloud nine. They said they were so happy and had so much love and positivity from the beautiful evening, and she believed it was what carried them through her operation.
As per Vogue, Jaouad is the author of the memoir "Between Two Kingdoms," which accounts for her leukemia diagnosis at 22, just as she'd just fallen in love with her new boyfriend, moved to Paris, and was at the prime of her life. She had been recently diagnosed with leukemia for a second time.
