Members of the Marcotte family in Bonfield want to make one message very clear: Saturday, Dec. 12, was a joyful day in their world. They have agreed this date will be remembered as the wedding day of Sarah and her husband, Jacob Marciniak.
Observances of the tragedy that struck that day will have to be reserved for one week later, Saturday, Dec. 19. That's when funeral services will be held for Tim Marcotte, 48, the father of the bride. His big day — escorting Sarah down the aisle, offering a wedding toast and just enjoying the reception in the Trinity Lutheran Church Hall in Herscher — was his last.
The wedding ceremony began at 10:30 a.m. The reception followed in the attached hall. The festivities and cleanup efforts wrapped up around 2:30 p.m. and Tim had even helped with the process of folding up banquet tables and storing them away.
And, then, Kris, Tim's wife and mother of the bride, heard someone shout that Tim "fell."
"He was talking to the new in-laws and they said he just turned and said, 'I'm sorry,' and went down," Kris said. "Heart problems are common in his family, but he had no warning. We still don't have the autopsy information. It's pretty clear, though, that it was cardiac related."
Tim worked at CSL Behring and had a collection of hobbies, from coin collecting to gardening.
"He would tell me that he hoped he was around to see his grandchildren, but he didn't think he was going to last that long," said son Andrew, 21. "He always thought he was going to die of a heart attack or something like that."
But those thoughts weren't darkening this celebration.
"He pulled me aside a couple of times that day," Andrew noted. "He was nervous about his toast at first. But he got through that fine. Then he wanted to talk about the reception, and we agreed it was all going good. He seemed relaxed."
And, at first, the family and friends who were cleaning up the hall may not have been too alarmed when Tim fell. After all, he was recently busy trimming trees and cutting wood with Andrew. And there were medically-trained professionals in the room, coming to his aid.
"But this was one of those bad ones," Kris said. "The paramedics came and took him to the hospital, and he was pronounced [dead] there."
The newlyweds planned to use this week to get moved into a new place in the Milwaukee area. The honeymoon already was postponed until Sarah graduated from pharmacy school in May. Now, everyone, including brother Matthew, will stay close for the funeral arrangements.
They will return to the Trinity Lutheran Church, where visitation will begin Saturday at 9 a.m. Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m., with the Rev. Eric J. Brown officiating. Burial will be at Mound Grove Garden Cemetery in Kankakee.
"We're trying to be positive about this," Kris said. "We prefer to think that God kept him here for the wedding, and then took him to heaven. We were all so glad that he was there for Sarah. And it was better that this didn't happen in front of people. He wouldn't have wanted that."
Of course, family members will look back at Tim's last days and wonder if they missed any warnings. But they don't expect to find any revelations.
"It's just weird how a body just stops like that," Andrew said. "But I think going that quick was how he would have preferred it."Read more at:http://www.marieprom.co.uk/green-prom-dresses | http://www.marieprom.co.uk/purple-prom-dresses