My friend Frank Berger called me in August with the news that he had a life-threatening form of leukemia — and that he was one of the happiest and most thankful men alive.

To understand that dichotomy, you would have to know Frank, one of the kindest, wittiest, most unselfish people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.

Our phone conversation was a roller coaster of emotions: Joy at hearing from a friend whose son, Andrew, had been my son Alec’s good buddy in preschool and Cub Scouts. Sadness at learning of his illness. Joy again at hearing the remarkable story of his daughter Leah’s impromptu wedding on the grounds of Miami Valley Hospital.

As usual, Frank wasn’t calling about himself, and there wasn’t a hint of self-pity in his voice about the devastating diagnosis of the rare and deadly acute myeloid leukemia. He wanted to tell me the story of how the hospital staff had come together to make sure he could walk his daughter down the aisle.

Leah, 22, met Damon a few years earlier as a freshman at Ohio University; he was one of the “cute guys” at the Pita Pit restaurant she liked to frequent. After graduation it became clear that this particular cute guy was the one with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life.

Damon decided to go the traditional route and ask Frank for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Frank’s nurse connived for the two of them to take a walk together through the corridors of Miami Valley Hospital, where Frank had been undergoing treatment for the past few weeks. “We all knew about it except Frank,” recalled Rachel Ramey, Frank’s nurse.

Frank returned to his hospital bed, beaming, and tears came to his eyes as Damon got down on bended knee and, in the presence of both sets of parents, told Leah that she was his best friend and he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her.

“I guess there’s going to be a wedding,” Frank said, beaming, but adding that the couple didn’t need to rush on his account.

His daughter felt differently. Just the day before, the family had gotten the bad news that the first round of chemo hadn’t worked. Frank had nearly died after an earlier bout with pneumonia. Reflected Leah, “Everybody dreams of having a big wedding with their extended family and all their friends there. But it was more important to have my dad there and to have him walk me down the aisle.”

Leah asked Ramey if the hospital chaplain could perform the ceremony in the near future. The nurse quickly came back with the proposal, “What about tomorrow?”

Leah envisioned an informal affair with a few family members and no catering beyond a few Subway sandwiches. But Ramey set in motion something very different — a full-scale wedding with all the trimmings, to be performed the next evening at 6 p.m. Nutrition services baked two wedding cakes and catered a buffet. Environmental Services festooned the courtyard with decorations and rented white party chairs from Prime Time Rental — all without consulting the Bergers or charging them a dime.

Leah and her mother, Marybeth Berger, found themselves shopping for “an emergency wedding dress” the next morning and even experienced a “Bridezilla” moment before choosing a lovely tea-length bridal gown.

Forty friends and family members had assembled in time for the 6 p.m. wedding — the first ever in the Miami Valley Hospital courtyard. Marybeth told herself, “You have got to be kidding me,” when they saw the courtyard decked out for a fairytale wedding. “It was like Leah was a queen, a princess,” she said. “There was a waterfall, trees and a setting sun and a white runner and all these white chairs.”

Frank, who was at high risk for infection, wore a face mask for most of the ceremony, but was able to take it off when he walked Leah down the aisle. He traded his hospital gown for a blue suit as he and Marybeth walked their firstborn down the aisle. At the reception, the bride and groom made the rounds in a hospital golf cart bestrewn with “Just Married” signs.

“It wound up being the white wedding I had dreamed about,” Leah marveled. “I would have been happy with the Subway sandwiches, because family is what really mattered.”

Marybeth still can’t get over the kindness of the hospital staff: “In the six weeks I was there, I never ran into anyone who wasn’t really nice.”

Frank died Oct. 24, at age 56. Marybeth described his final two years as “the happiest in his life.” He had achieved success in his 24-year career as an engineer at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, recently earning a civilian medal for his work in intelligence and surveillance. He and Marybeth had moved to their dream home in Troy less than two years ago, after their son Andrew, now a student at Wright State University, graduated from Oakwood High School in 2010. He loved to cook, to entertain, to ride his motorcycle and to perform in the Illuzion Band.

My last few conversations with Frank centered around his joy about the wedding, and his gratitude to Miami Valley Hospital, rather than sorrow about his illness. “She married her true love and greatest friend, Damon Breeden,” Frank wrote in an email after the wedding. “They’re very happy, as am I.”

He told how much he loved Marybeth and their children, and how he was a very lucky man.

After all, as he said to another friend, “I got to walk my baby down the aisle.”