The happiest day of their lives turned into a nightmare for one couple after the soon-to-be bride died from COVID-19 just five days after she was supposed to get married.
Stephanie Lynn Smith and Jamie Bassett met through a dating app in June 2017 and officially began dating in April of 2018.
Bassett, 31, a data analyst, said he knew Smith was the one he wanted to marry, and proposed just one year later, according to NBC News.
"This is someone that you don't meet every day," Bassett told the news outlet. He continued gushing about his fiancé saying, "This is an uncommonly caring and loving person who just wants to fix the world."
Smith volunteered for Operation Baby Watch, a program in Lubbock that provides hospitalized foster children with adult sitters.
The happy couple were looking forward to their wedding on November 13.
Smith's older brother was set to officiate the wedding in front of their parents at a scaled-down ceremony in a field in Lubbock, Texas, where Bassett had proposed, according to NBC News. Bassett said they had favored the location, which he believes is an abandoned golf course.
Instead of walking down the aisle, Smith spent her special day in a hospital bed where she tested positive for coronavirus and was diagnosed with pneumonia.
"Today was supposed to be my wedding day," Bassett wrote in a Facebook post Nov. 13. "Instead, Stephanie is in the hospital getting her oxygen levels up and I haven't seen her in two days. This really sucks and I just want everything to not be this way."
Five days later, he and Smith's family rushed to the hospital only to learn that his fiancé had died.
Her mother, Oralia Smith, confirmed Wednesday that her death certificate listed COVID-19 as the cause of death. Her daughter was only 29 years-old.
Basset said his fiancé began to feel sick on November 3, and began noticing that food started tasting strange to her on November 7, according to the outlet.
"She was stressing about the wedding," her mother said. "She went to see the doctor about that, and he gave her medication for that."
After seeking treatment for what she thought was shingles, Smith did not begin to feel better, so she went to the hospital where she was diagnosed with the deadly virus and pneumonia. She was sent home and instructed to rest, take vitamins and monitor her oxygen, Bassett said.
The next day, her fiancé and mother took Smith back to the hospital because of low oxygen levels.
"We kissed her and told her we would see her and that she would be OK," her mother said. That was the last time they saw her alive in person.
In a Facebook post on November 15, Smith seemed to be getting better, but as time went on, her condition worsened and she was transferred to the intensive care.
On November 18, Smith passed away after losing her pulse four times in one day.
Smith's family remembers her as a fun-loving, caring person. "Her laugh was so contagious. It was so loud. It was so funny," her mother told NBC News on Wednesday through tears. "Just to hear her. Always the loudest one at family gatherings."
Bassett will remember her for her can-do attitude. "That was just her mindset: You can do something to help if you are willing to look for it," he said.
Oralia Smith said she has taken comfort in the number of people who have made donations to the South Plains College Alumni Association in her daughter's honor. Smith "had a huge heart," which her mother believes was why she excelled at her job of the past several years.
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