Trip to the post office turns tragic, leaves fiance grieving his bride-to-be

Life without Kate Trip to the post office turns tragic, leaves fiance grieving his bride-to-be

Wednesday, June 20, 2007
By Rex Hall Jr.
rhall@kalamazoogazette.com 388-7784

Jeremie Coplin placed his fiancee's hand gently in his as she lay unconscious in a hospital bed.

Their pastor at his side, he slid a ring onto her finger and recited his wedding vows.

A day later, the love of his life was gone.

Coplin, 24, and Kate Kwasny, 23, were to have been married July 21 at their Delton church. But there was little doctors could do to heal injuries Kwasny suffered June 12 in a car crash.

It was a union ``in the eyes of God,'' Coplin said of the symbolic ceremony last Thursday at Borgess Medical Center.

Kwasny, though not conscious, gripped his hand and their pastor's hand during the ceremony, Coplin said.

``She knew, she knew,'' he said of the ceremony. ``It was good.''

Kwasny, a business and computer-education teacher at Comstock High School, was on her way to a post office in Richland last Tuesday to mail thank-you cards and invitations to the couple's rehearsal dinner when her car slammed into the back of a pickup truck stopped for a left turn. She suffered severe head trauma and never regained consciousness.

While losing his bride-to-be is devastating, Coplin said he takes some comfort from knowing that she was an organ donor. ``She was really strong about being a donor because she said, `Why not help someone else,''' he said. ``All of her tissue, all of her bone will be used for making people better.''

Friends and family of Kwasny hope her death will help draw attention to the benefits of organ donation, Coplin said Tuesday, a day after her funeral services, as he sat at the Parchment residence the couple was to have shared.

He reflected, beyond the tragedy and heartache of the last week, on the eight years since the couple began dating as juniors in high school. His fiancee was a meticulous planner, said Coplin, himself a kindergarten teacher for Constantine Public Schools. She was in charge of the prom and homecoming committees for Comstock high-school students and was halfway to obtaining a master's degree in educational leadership.

``There were a lot of things I wouldn't have been able to do without her planning,'' said Coplin, recalling how promptly she had prepared the 35 thank-yous she had planned to mail June 12 for gifts at her wedding shower the previous Saturday. The thank-yous, found in her purse after the crash, have since been mailed.

``She was really on top of the world,'' Coplin said. ``It was a lot to look forward to.''

The couple had planned a monthlong honeymoon with stops in Atlanta and Florida, a cruise, some time in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and a week in New York City, where they had tickets to see ``Rent.''

Thoughts of their honeymoon ran through Coplin's head Thursday, as he said his final good-byes, knowing Kwasny had little time left. He repeated a phrase they had always told one another, ``I love you to the moon.''

``I just held on,'' he said. ``I told her I loved her. I was just praying, praying a lot, just trying to express my love as much as I could.''

Coplin is dealing with his grief by drawing from a faith that Kwasny helped strengthen in him. He said he takes comfort in knowing she is in a better place.

There are reminders of her all around the house. There's the bottle of wine the two had planned to share on their wedding day or honeymoon, the wooden decoration adorned with Kwasny's life motto, ``Live, Laugh, Love.''

``She lived it, she lived full,'' Coplin said. ``Right now, she'd just be telling me to stay strong, be happy, keep my head on straight and just go with it.''

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