Chris Smith: Wedding venue to host memorial for Santa Rosa woman who died months before her ceremony

His beautiful and comical daughter’s wedding plans, that’s what Mike Bencze would like to talk about. But instead of a wedding there will be a memorial service.

Bencze (BEN-see) does his best to hold it together while speaking of his astonishment at the “most amazing” humanity revealed since everything abruptly changed for his Lisa, who was born in Santa Rosa just 27 years ago.

For months prior to last December, Topic No. 1 for Lisa and Matt Pedemonte was the marriage ceremony they’d set for this coming September at the lovely Sweet Lane Gardens, near Sonoma State University. Lisa, then a massage therapist at Sonoma Mission Inn, and Matt, a surgical technologist at Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, were friends well before they agreed it would be good to spend forever together.

Susie Sweet, a partner in Sweet Lane Gardens, had a blast starting to make wedding-day plans with the future bride - “just such a bubbly, outgoing person ... so young and vibrant.”

With so much going on in Lisa’s life, the discomfort she felt in her abdomen in November didn’t seem remarkable. Then it became painful enough to warrant a trip to the doctor.

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THE SHOCK CAME on her birthday, Dec. 13: She was suffering from an extremely rare and menacing cancer, peritoneal mesothelioma.

Her fiancé didn’t leave her side as she set off to consult with doctors as far away as San Diego and undertook aggressive therapies. Her father recalls “test after test, chemo treatments and a regimen of drugs that required a small travel case to tote the 30 bottles or more” of medications.

Early in March, Lisa made a heartbreaking call to Sweet Lane Gardens. Susie Sweet remembers it well.

Lisa was crying. She told Sweet of her illness and that she couldn’t be certain that she and Matt could marry on Sept. 21, the day they’d reserved.

Remembers Sweet, “She said, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be married on that date because I have to take care of this first.’”

Sweet told Lisa, “No. I’m not releasing that date. That is your date.”

The owner of the wedding venue then declared to the ailing bride-to-be that once she beat the cancer she and Matt would come there to Petaluma Hill Road and have “the best goddamn wedding, for free!”

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LISA DID FIGHT. Still the cancer advanced. As she fought for her life, Lisa held tightly her resolve to marry Matt.

“I have a gorgeous diamond on my finger. Given to me by the world’s most perfect guy,” she posted to Facebook on March 1.

“A true fairytale love,” she continued. “And I don’t know exactly when it will happen anymore - but I can’t wait to become his wife.

“I can’t wait to stand on the beach on our honeymoon and feel the sand between my toes. Standing in triumph, holding my husband’s hand knowing that we have already conquered our biggest battle. I know that day will come and I can almost feel the sun on my face just thinking about it ... I can’t wait for that moment.

“And cocktails. I can’t wait for cocktails.”

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A MONTH LATER, on April 4, Lisa’s condition had worsened and her pain increased so much that she was admitted to Sutter’s Santa Rosa hospital.

She and Matt had to accept that there would be no wedding in the garden, but they were determined to be married - right there in Room 2119 of the hospital’s Vineyard View wing.

The nuptials were set for April 6. It would be a far simpler wedding than originally planned, but even so there was much to be done.

Lisa had a gown, a beauty made for her by Amparo Chavez of Santa Rosa’s Mariposa Seamstress shop. But it no longer fit because of the weight she’d lost to her medical ordeal.

On April 5, a Friday, Janet Christie, an aunt of Lisa, took the dress back to Chavez. The seamstress was heartsick to hear of what Lisa, “a wonderful person,” was going through.

That night she spent “four or five hours” making major alterations to the dress. When Christie and her daughter, Katyellen Lindroos, came to pick it up, Chavez told them the gown was her gift to Lisa.

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WHO WOULD CONDUCT the exchange of vows? Family friend Ron Kamler reached out to the county clerk’s office.

A short time later, Lisa’s stepmom, Fernande Bencze, received a call from the county offices. The caller was Deva Marie Proto, the county’s new clerk-recorder-assessor-registrar of voters.

She offered to file the necessary marriage documents and to be at-ready around the clock to come to the hospital and conduct the ceremony.

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THAT FIRST SATURDAY of April, all was ready for a wedding in Sutter Hospital Room 2119. But a mere two days after she’d been admitted, Lisa had simply slipped too far away.

The conclusion that an exchange of vows was not possible seemed as devastating to the nurses and other of the wing’s staffers as to Lisa’s sister, Jennifer Raggio, and brother, Bradley Bencze, and the dozen or so other family members and friends encamped there. Lisa’s father stood in awe of the care and caring that his daughter and his entire family received from the staff.

“It was if they all looked at caring for Lisa as their mission in life, and our family will be forever grateful,” he said.

He cheered to learn that in May the Sonoma County-based DAISY Foundation, which acknowledges service beyond the call by nurses across the U.S. and in 22 other nations, honored Lisa’s nurses for all they did for his daughter and their family.

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LISA DIED at 8:57 p.m. on April 14.

Time had to pass before her dad could talk about losing her and about the truly overwhelming kindness, generosity and caring shown to her and all who loved her.

It hasn’t stopped, Mike Bencze said.

Though the planned September wedding won’t happen at Sweet Lane Gardens, the proprietors are preparing to welcome in a few more days Lisa’s and Matt’s families and friends to a complimentary celebration of a life that was just splendid but far too short.

You can reach Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 or chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.