The Most Captivating, Inspiring, Real-Life Stories of 2017

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A Wife Reacted to Her Husband’s Terminal Cancer Diagnosis With a Selfie

To passersby, Jennifer and Justin Baker looked like just another couple snapping a selfie. There’s a good chance someone spotted the nurse and her handsome surgeon husband cuddling on a park bench and thought: They must have it all.

But there is so much more to the photo that was taken in Baltimore, Maryland, July 20. That morning, Justin, 38, received a life-changing diagnosis: pancreatic cancer. Days later, the Fairfax, Virginia-based father of two would learn it was stage IV, inoperable and spreading aggressively. With treatments, Justin’s oncologist gave him a one-year-median survival.

Jennifer shared the photo in a Facebook post published in August. “So this is us . . . the day our next chapter really began,” the mom of Annabelle and Jamison wrote. “We were walking through the harbor and you wanted to sit for a while. I didn’t know if it was appropriate to take a picture, but knowing me I asked anyways. We had both been crying for hours but you smiled and said yes. Maybe you knew that this moment would show our love like no photo ever had before. That kind of love, the love that we have, you can’t get it just anywhere . . . It’s the kind of love that picks up when you were broken so badly before. It lights up your darkness and calms your storms.”

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