When people think about proposing to the love of their life, a lot of thought can go into the day.
Location, speech, and the classic act of getting down on one knee.
Brett Clark and Ruth Everingham met online, with their first date at a restaurant in Rouse Hill.
“We hit it off straight away,” Brett said.
Ruth never thought she would find love.
“I never thought I’d meet anyone having a disability,” Ruth admits.
“I’m vision impaired in the right eye and I have Parkinson’s,” Ruth said.
They’ve been dating for eight years, and in that time, Brett has suffered eight strokes.
Brett had been rehabilitating at Auburn Hospital for several months when a diagnosis revealed the reason for his strokes.
“Brett was diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, that was the hardest thing. I broke down,” Ruth said.
The diagnosis left Brett with a renewed determination to live a full life, and decided he wanted to get engaged.
Lyndell Bambridge is an Occupational Therapist who had been looking after Brett at Auburn Hospital.
“He’d gotten some news, which was some pretty sad news, that he’s at high risk of having a stroke, and he didn’t want to wait any longer to pop the big question and ask Ruth,” Lyndell said.
Lyndell took on the role of wedding planner, workshopping spaces in the hospital he could propose and coordinating his goals to help Brett achieve his dreams for the big day.
“As OTs, we’re very privileged at being able to be invited into somebody’s life, to be able to watch this love story come to fruition,” Lyndell said.
“What a reward! There are not many jobs that you do that are that rewarding. Makes me teary now, made me teary on the day, but it makes me teary now,” Lyndell said.
Speech therapist Cindy worked with Brett on his engagement speech, to help him speak clearly with good projection.
“We really just had to work on Brett’s voice, because I knew that whatever he was going to say, it had to purely come from him, and that Ruth could hear it,” Cindy said.
Occupational therapist Gayathri Giri Nadarajah worked with Brett to be able to bend down on one knee.
The specificity of the goal, bending down on one knee, really helped to make it achievable.
“Seeing how happy both Brett and Ruth were, it was just, it was a full circle moment,” Gaya said.
She also reflected on the impact of Brett and Ruth’s courage, in turn inspiring her in her own career.
“Being able to be a part of something so special was just very, very fulfilling, and it just reminds you why you want to be a physio,” Gaya said.
Brett and Ruth have a shared sense of grit and determination not to let hardship stand in their way.
“Things happen to people, you have to be strong for each other,” Ruth said.
“You can’t give up, because when you have someone with a stroke and someone with Parkinson’s, you think your life’s over, but it’s not,” Ruth said.