Pink curtains, red double-luck characters, a two-layer cake and candy signifying happiness, these are the decorations of an ordinary wedding hall. But this was the recreation room in the eastern wing of Tzu Chi Hospital. Skillfully decorated by nurses and volunteers, it became a joyful wedding chapel.

In order to fulfill the last wish of a terminally ill female patient, Sister Huei-mei Yen, director of the volunteer division of Tzu Chi Hospital, played the match-maker for Mei-fung Chen, who was in the last stage of cervical carcinoma of the uterus, and San-tsung Lin, who had courted the girl for ten years. Master Cheng Yen blessed the new couple and gave each of them a necklace with a figure of the Goddess of Mercy and a string of Buddhist "worry beads."

At 10:00 a.m. on March 15, the bride's father, relatives and close friends on both sides, nurses and volunteers were all there to witness the wedding. The nurses and volunteers sang "Friends, We Bless You Forever" and "The Warm World." The bride sat on a wheelchair which was slowly pushed into the wedding room by the groom.

Master Cheng Yen said to them, "On the rugged path of life, the most difficult is to have true love. No matter how long the path is ahead of you, since you have the karma to become husband and wife, I hope that you will bless and be grateful to each other, and that both of you will cherish the karma. Your 'small love' for each other will develop into 'great love' for all living beings in the world, and you will make a vow to walk on the Path of the Bodhisattvas in every future life."

When the bride's father gave his daughter's hand to the groom, the old man's eyes were filled with tears. The groom held the bride's hand and they cut the cake together to share it with all the guests.

Mei-fung Chen has known about her cancer for two years. She received treatments from the hospital several times. Half a year ago, she knew she could not be cured. She could only keep her pain under control with medicine. During her hospitalization, her boyfriend looked after her day and night.