A terminally ill man who chose to provide for his kids over spending money on a wedding has finally tied the knot with his fiancé – 20 years after he first proposed to her.

Dean Pennell, 63, met his partner Kay Beaman, 62, through their children 24 years ago in Basildon, Essex.

The couple held off on wedding plans in order to provide for their 10 children. 

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But after being told he had just weeks to live, Pennell — who has terminal cancer — finally married Beaman on June 18 at Colchester Hospital in Essex, England, news agency SWNS reported.

The new wife said, “I am absolutely elated. We have waited a long time, and it’s so special to be able to celebrate our marriage here, with our families.”

She added to SWNS, “Dean proposed when we first got together — but with 10 children between us, money would not allow.”

She added, “We were planning to get married this year, but with the situation as it was, we decided to bring the wedding forward.”

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The couple were joined by their family and friends, including their 10 children and some of their 18 grandchildren.

The event was organized in less than a week by a variety of hospital staff members, SWNS noted.

Said Beaman, “It was very hard for Dean. He had been so excited in the lead-up to the wedding, and I would get a phone call from him at the hospital every morning telling me how many days there were to go until the wedding.”

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She said that “when the day came, he was adamant, as difficult as it was, that he was going to stand up for as much as the ceremony as possible — and we had a lovely day.”

She noted her new husband “was exhausted afterward. Dean is now back at home, and we are living life to suit us.”

A former electroplater, Pennell added, “It was absolutely brilliant. The staff worked really hard to organize the wedding.”

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Ward manager Lucy Everett said, “It has been a pleasure to be able to help Dean and Kay. It’s rare that we get to celebrate a wedding at Colchester Hospital — it’s a first for me,” as SWNS reported.

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The East Suffolk and North Essex Foundation Trust also presented the couple with a clock — displaying the exact time the happy couple said “I do” on their big day. 

This story discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

A 30-year-old man has been asking people he doesn’t know to sit with him in pubs across the country ever since December of last year, as part of what he calls his “Empty Chairs” campaign.

Dean Perryman came up with the idea after his best friend, Rob Clancy, tragically died by suicide at age 29 just a month earlier.

Wanting to make sure nobody else ever felt alone — even perfect strangers — Perryman started heading out to restaurants and pubs wearing a bright orange hoodie to make his presence obvious to anyone choosing to chat with him. 

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Just a few weeks ago, he held his program’s 1,000th meet-up in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, featuring about 12 attendees — and said he’s proud of how far it has come.

“It has been such an incredible experience. I am loving every second of it still,” the resident of Stratford in East London told news agency SWNS.

“When I started, it came from such a place of sadness — and to see how this simple idea has been able to help so many people has been really nice,” he said. “I have been able to meet and connect with so many new people and learn about them. It gives people an opportunity to speak openly if they need it.”

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Perryman works for team-building game company Chicken Rush. He used social media, he said, to create interest in the “Empty Chair” idea, he said.

The events started in London and Essex before the founder began recruiting volunteers to host them across the U.K. — and the rest of the world as well.

Events have since been planned in Manchester, Bedford, Cambridge, Skegness, Gloucester, Leeds, York, Wrexham, and more.

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It has also branched out to other countries, including Colombia, Spain, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.

He said lots of people actually return to the events, especially in smaller rural towns, as people create and build friendships that last long afterward.

Perryman, who has attended 61 himself, said his favorite part of the events is seeing men open up about their troubles, as he feels they need a safe space to do so.

“Some people come because they really want someone to listen to what they have to say,” he said. “Others come because they have the capacity to be there for someone else. Everyone shares their own story, but it stays at the table.”

“No matter who you are, there is a place for you.”

He said the groups have “talked about the difficulty of living in a big city and feeling isolated, but nothing is off the table — we’ve spoken about everything and anything. To give people a place that they can go when they need to talk is incredible.”

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Perryman said he has about 200 more events already lined up — and said he has no plans to stop scheduling them, SWNS reported.

He said there is no pattern in terms of who shows up. Usually, it’s a diverse group of people. 

“Every Empty Chairs event you go to, you are going to meet people of different walks of life,” he said. “It is so powerful to show that, no matter who you are, there is a place for you. We have everyone — men, women, young, old. There really isn’t a barrier to entry for this. Whoever needs the space is welcome to come.”

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He also said, “A lot of people come because they’re feeling lonely in a new area, or they want to make new friends.”

He said he hopes that his Empty Chairs campaign can be a lasting legacy for his best friend, Rob — someone he believes needed a similar space.

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“He was the kindest, sweetest guy you could ever hope to meet,” said Perryman. “Like a lot of men, he wasn’t the biggest sharer. He was very much the life and soul of anywhere you went, but he wasn’t someone who would be the first to open up about it if he was feeling some type of way.”

“To now be in a position where Empty Chairs looks like it could be a legacy for Rob is amazing,” Perryman added.

A 78-year-old Oklahoma woman who was diagnosed with polio as a child and was the last American to rely on an iron lung to live has died.

Martha Lillard found out she had the once-feared disease when she was 5 years old, which left her paralyzed from the neck down, and required her to use the machine to help her breathe while she slept.

Lillard contracted COVID-19 twice during the pandemic, which left her in the machine nearly 24 hours a day.

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“They told her she wasn’t supposed to live past 20 years old,” her younger sister, Cindy McVey, told The Associated Press on Friday. “She had the enthusiasm and the drive to continue living and make the best of her life.”

Despite having polio, Lillard was able to go to school two hours a day as a child, and she had tutors the rest of the time. She also used an intercom phone system that allowed her to interact with her teachers and classmates from home.

Lillard was even able to take road trips as a child because of a custom trailer that could accommodate the iron lung and her father making sure their hotels had wide enough doors for the machine.

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An iron lung is a negative-pressure ventilator that would help a patient with paralyzed lung muscles breathe.

The disease once caused thousands of cases of paralysis in children during outbreaks each year in the first part of the 20th century before a vaccine became available in 1955.

By 1979, polio was considered eliminated in the U.S.

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Later, Lillard was able to regain the use of her left arm and legs through therapy and was even able to drive for a time.

She lived independently for many years, even getting married earlier this year to a man from Egypt she corresponded with for two decades after he was able to obtain a visa.

“They were really soul mates,” McVey said. “He’s extremely brokenhearted.”

Lillard, who wrote poetry and volunteered with the Humane Society, according to her sister, had just 25% lung capacity before she was diagnosed with COVID.

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She died of chronic pulmonary failure and post-polio syndrome, according to her death certificate.

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Her sister added that it was related to the effects of long-haul COVID.

The Associated Press contributed reporting.