Mother-made veil enhances clarity of love.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

Saturday, at Grace Community Fellowship in Eugene, she waited at the back of the church. Waited for that hand to gently take her arm, as she'd imagined, and escort her down the aisle to the young man she would marry.

For Deena Hanson, it was a small dream, sure. But, at 21, the University of Oregon senior had learned not to dream too big.

Growing up in San Bernardino, Calif., she remembers her mother, Roxanne, making veils for two little girls taking their first communions. Enter Small Dream No. 2: "Mom, someday when I get married, will you make me a veil like that?"

Roxanne said sure.

Nearby, Deena's father, Steve, smiled as the girl left the room. "You know, you're going to have to make that veil someday. She's gonna remember."

Steve doted on Deena. He played the heavy when it came to keeping the three boys in line, but Deena was his "little honey." He spoiled her as much as a minimum-wage mechanic could. And told Roxanne he looked forward to that walk down the aisle with his daughter someday.

When the brain cancer returned, though, he couldn't take it anymore. Couldn't take the idea of living like a vegetable if the last-ditch surgery didn't work. So he made a choice that, in a mind twisted by disease, he thought was best for all: He wrote a note, saying how much he loved them all, went to the garage and put a bullet through his head.

Deena was home when it happened. She was 10.

Two years later, Roxanne remarried and the family moved to Waterville, Wash., a no-stoplight town near Wenatchee, where her new husband's folks lived.

She worked as a waitress and, during summer harvest, weighed trucks hauling wheat.

The marriage went bad. Fights. Restraining orders. After five years, Deena watched another man leave her life. But the divorce settlement allowed the family to stay in the doublewide rent-free.

Deena, meanwhile, poured herself into school and sports at Waterville High. Made all-state in basketball. As a senior, she was chosen class valedictorian. In her graduation speech, she didn't talk about changing the world, but about friends who had saved her life when, on the senior trip, she'd gotten caught in an Oceanside, Wash., undertow.

"Wasn't a dry eye in the gym," remembers Roxanne.

Deena won scholarships to Washington State University and paid for the rest of her schooling through loans and working at the recreation center. ``(Towel Folder of the Semester'' Spring 2006). She majored in psychology. And decided to teach.

Last summer, at Wildhorse Canyon, a Young Life camp in north-central Oregon, she met the young man now waiting for her in front of the church.

She worked the ropes course. He was the camp videographer. She noticed how involved he was with the campers, his sense of humor. He noticed her zest for life - and how much of his ropes-course footage included, uh, her.

He popped the question eight months later during an Oregon Coast sunset. Later, in Waterville, the phone rang. "Mom," said Deena, "remember how you said you'd make me a veil?"

Roxanne broke into tears. "I knew by Deena's voice he was the one for her," she says. "When her father died, she had a tough, tough time. But that night when she called - I've never heard her so happy."

Roxanne had a friend drive her to Wenatchee - dead battery in her '78 Olds Cutlass - and she bought the finest piece of tulle she could find. She spent three weeks making the fingertip-length veil, its edges embellished with hundreds of hand-sewn silver beads. Later, she took a Greyhound bus to Eugene.

On Saturday, the veil looked beautiful on her daughter, who waited at the back of the church, then felt a hand gently take her arm.

It was her mother's. Arm and arm, two survivors of life's undertows. As the pianist played Pachabel's "Canon in D," Roxanne proudly walked Deena down the aisle to the fortunate young man she would marry - my son, Jason.