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But it was beautiful anyway.
I felt honored to be asked to write about the wedding in this column, which was published Feb. 21.
But what I didn’t know then was that on the day the column was published, Rudy almost died.
“They told me he wasn’t going to make it,” Deborah said. “They were taking him to the ICU and I wouldn’t see him alive again.”
Hospital workers let her FaceTime with him as they wheeled him to the ICU, ostensibly to say her goodbyes.
She wasn’t ready for that.
Doctors gave them three options: Put him on a ventilator, put him in hospice or keep fighting.
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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. She had everything planned. It would be the perfect wedding, big and old-school, just as they wanted.
She had the dress. He had the zoot suit.
Deborah Ortiz and Rudy Lucero would marry at the University of New Mexico duck pond, surrounded by their five children serving as bridesmaids and groomsmen, their seven grandchildren and 325 close friends and family. A procession of classic cars, each adorned with flowers Ortiz made out of tissue, would escort the wedding party to a grand reception.
Bride and groom Rudy and Deborah Lucero have been together for 15 years. They got married Feb. 7 in a Zoom wedding because Rudy is hospitalized with COVID-19. (Courtesy of Deborah Lucero)