We have been married for almost seven years and are from vastly different backgrounds. Toni was raised Catholic, and I was born in Pakistan and raised Muslim.

We were blessed with two wonderful boys, Elijah in 2003 and Isaac in 2006. Having two small children is tough work and takes a toll on everyone. We have fought about lots of things and stayed mad at each other for eons. The words “I'm sorry” were not in our vocabularies, and it was clear that wax had filled our ears until we couldn't listen to each other. All of that was followed by just not talking to each other.

For better or worse, children will often provide a wake-up call. In November 2007, when Isaac was just one, he started having seizures. By February, he was in the hospital. An MRI showed a large tumor on the right side of his brain. It took several weeks of testing, and in mid-April we received a phone call that changed our lives forever. Isaac was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer.

The emotion and strain this put on our marriage was tremendous, especially since we weren’t communicating before Isaac was diagnosed. Through a year and a half of treatment with Isaac, our marriage continued to suffer. Little did we know that help was coming.

Isaacs' seizures caused many physical problems. He had symptoms similar to that of a stroke victim, such as weakness in his left side and dexterity problems. Instead of moving forward, he was moving back. It was at this point that Isaac began receiving physical therapy through SoonerStart. What awesome people. While his progress was slow, the staff at SoonerStart were always working on and changing Isaac’s treatment to target specific problems he was having.

Then a miracle happened (even if we didn't know it at the time). Our therapist asked if we would be interested in attending a marriage retreat with other couples who had children enrolled in SoonerStart. At first we weren’t sure if we would attend, but ultimately we couldn't remember the last time we had even been out for an evening alone. So off we went one Saturday morning to Guthrie.

When we arrived, we were treated to breakfast and knew if nothing else, at least the food was going to be wonderful. But then the retreat got down to business, and it was an eye opener. We separately filled out a questionnaire about our families, our feelings and our thoughts. This caused a moment of panic, and we thought we might fail and get sent home. But they were just gathering information to be shared with us the next day.

There were speakers on various subjects (all interesting and some funny), followed by group work where we learned about the other couples and ourselves. It had been so long since we had been able to just talk with other grown-ups, and these grown-ups had similar things going on in their lives. We didn't know we were having fun until the day was over. It went so fast! We then went to check into our hotel to get gussied up because we were going on a date (dinner and dancing provided by the lovely people at the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative). By the time we got back to our hotel room we, were talking like a normal couple – an amazing feat all by itself.

The second day was the most enlightening. Everything came together on day two. The results of our questionnaire were shared with us, and they were on the mark. We received a visual of how we relate to each other, and then OMI showed us how to use the information to help ourselves and our marriage. They gave us some simple basic tools to learn to communicate and listen to each other. All of this was wrapped up in a weekend get-away!

We feel truly blessed to have been a part of the marriage retreat, and it came in the nick of time. Isaac had just finished a round of radiation therapy when we went on the retreat. However, seven months of chemotherapy hadn't shrunk his tumor. It was in fact, growing. Even though radiation seemed to help, it was short lived bliss. After two weeks and 20 radiation treatments, an MRI revealed that the tumor was the same. A short week later, our son’s oncologist, who was consulting with St. Jude's Children’s Hospital, told us that there was nothing more they could do for Isaac. The very next day he could barely eat, and when he went to sleep that night, it was the last time we would see him awake. He fell into a coma on Sept. 22, 2009. The pressure of the tumor was starting to shut down his body, and on Dec. 9, 2009, our Peanut passed away at the age of three.

Without the OMI Retreat, we do not believe our marriage would have survived these past few months. It's never too late to try to save your marriage, and it is worth every ounce of effort you can muster to stay together. Always believe in yourselves and God. We are living proof. Never before in our marriage had we been so aware of each other, so considerate of each other. We actually listened to each other. We took each others feelings into account. We never once fought over the path we chose for Isaac. We both feel that Isaacs’s purpose might have been to bring us closer together. Without him we would never have had the chance to meet the people that led us to the OMI Retreat. We would have gone along never knowing that the leadership of Oklahoma is making a concerted effort to keep married Oklahomans together.

You never know how people can affect your life. Those two short days made a huge difference in our lives and we couldn't be more thankful to our Peanut, our family, friends and neighbors, to OMI, and to God for giving them all to us.

Thank You,

Toni & Tahir Mahmood