Chris McLaughlin, who lost his wife Tracy to colon cancer on Sept. 10, 2014 (she was 45), was determined to do and be whatever his children needed as they grieved together.

He tried to prepare Simon and Avery (now 14 and 12 respectively), and be prepared himself, for whatever feelings and concerns might overtake them.

What he didn't expect is that he'd be telling his children, around the middle of last year, that their father had fallen in love. He didn't foresee that he'd be seeking, after all they'd been through, to introduce a new person to their lives.

Furthermore, he did not foresee having to deal with, in the midst of his sorrow, the strangeness of new joy, the paradox of feeling somehow lucky.

Such is love.

Nova Reesor was caught equally off guard. She lost her husband — his name was also Chris, Chris Reesor — in 2012 to brain cancer. He died on the same date, Sept. 10, as Tracy, two years earlier.

Chris and Nova didn't know each other existed, until late 2014. A Facebook posting about Tracy's obituary caught Nova's attention.

"It hit me like a brick," says Nova, who lived in Belleville at the time.

"This was my own experience."

Such similarities. She also had two children, Eric and Krysta, 19 and 17. She posted a simple message expressing sympathy and compassion, for which she had unique credentials.

He posted back. This went on. Weeks later, as Nova was going to be in Hamilton to visit her sister, they arranged to meet, at Aberdeen Tavern.

They talked and talked, and shared and felt, as though with a special passport to each other's emotions and experiences, bound as they were by corresponding circumstances of pain, loneliness and grief.

They met often after that, the clarity growing with each encounter. Love had let itself in.

"We worked hard to keep it under wraps and manage the children's introduction to it," says Chris. "They knew nothing for months."

Nova, who is a renovator (tool belt, truck, the whole deal) would visit the house more and more often. It was very gradual.

Chris laughs, remembering how one of his kids said to the other, "Isn't it weird that dad talks to the renovator lady so much?"

When Chris finally told them that he and Nova were in love, this is what his son Simon, 14, said to him:

"Dad, the way you did that was perfect."

Chris's eyes filled with tears. He said to his son, "Buddy, do you ever know the right thing to say."

He was so relieved.

Chris and Nova were married in Chris's home (now also Nova's) on Nov. 21. A reception at the Aberdeen Tavern, where they first met, followed.

Avery, 12, spoke at the service, about gentleness and loving respect.

Nova's children have been totally supportive. So has almost everyone in their lives.

"It's been amazing, how caring and embracing our families and friends have been," says Chris.

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There are some, very few, who haven't come around. But no one knows better than Chris and Nova how uncertain tomorrow is. They knew this was love; why wait?

And, they say, their present marriage is a tribute to the marriages they lost to cancer. Both Nova and Chris loved being married; their marriages produced wonderful memories, wonderful families. Their happiness now is what their late spouses would've wanted.

"In order to have new love, you don't have to take it away from someone else," says Chris. "The process (of grief) is totally individual. There is no recipe, and everyone's grief is unique."

"And it's such hard work," adds Nova. "The cruel irony is that the very one you would turn to in a time of crisis or weakness" is the one whose loss is the crisis you're undergoing.

Now they have someone to turn to again.

But the love they have for their late spouses is never going away, say Chris and Nova. It endures in every memory and as a continual strength in their new lives, in the love they have for their children and for each other, now and henceforth into the promise of what awaits.

Chris's Facebook posting just after their wedding: Once upon a time — actually it was a year ago to the day — two cancer widows, strangers to each other and each with two teens, met up at the Aberdeen Tavern to commiserate about shared experiences. What they could not have imagined was that they would come to find mutual respect, support and love in great abundance. And at mid life, having lived through so much joy and sorrow and with so much of life in the rear-view mirror, they would become a very, very special blessing to each other.

We both just liked being married. As many of you will know, both of us had been married to and raised families with truly exceptional people — and we wished to have that again. And with this choice we hope to provide a home with as much stability and positive energy for our children as we can.

In a private ceremony with our immediate families, this passage was included in the Address to the Couple: "Nova and Chris, you have been here before. You once pledged yourself, and fulfilled promises with the full measure of devotion. You created families and nurtured dreams, forging a future that is, alas, now in the past. But you are no longer those people either, your younger selves. The spirit of Christian and Tracy lives on all around you, and all of us here today know that you have been changed thoroughly and utterly by the beauty and love that they brought into your lives. And we know that they continue to live through you, and that they have helped to give you the strength and wisdom to recognize and embrace new love, for all that it will mean for you both and for your children."

And in our vows to each other, we referenced this verse from Leonard Cohen's song "Anthem" that speaks to us:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in.

And in response, we said that: "You are the light that broke through a crack When there was so much darkness in my life. We are closer than anyone else can imagine Because we are kind to each other, patient with each other And forgiving and understanding of each other. And today we ring the bells that still can ring. In a perfect world, we wouldn't even know each other. Plan B might not be perfect, but that doesn't mean that it's not a special, special blessing."