BAGUIO CITY ? They had gone through the ?in sickness and in health? period ? but when the time came, Robert and Doris Tibbets realized they were not quite ready for the ?death do us part? end of the deal, and so they rejected it.

No, not the vows, but the actual moment of dying and the severing of a union enriched by music and an abiding friendship that sum up their love story and their faith.

In 2002, Doris was diagnosed with breast cancer that had metastasized to a lymph node. She had just begun chemotherapy in April of that same year when Robert was pronounced clinically dead from a ruptured artery in his spleen.

Doris recalled: ?We were on the phone ? that was our way of sharing a meal even when we?re apart.? Barely four hours later, she received a call telling her Robert was dead ? his vital organs had shut down. ?I could only hold his feet. Everything else was covered with tubes and gadgets,? Doris said.

Robert remained clinically dead for seven days and the doctors wanted to pull the plug on the life support machines. By then, Robert?s body had become bloated and the nurses had to resort to swabbing formalin to keep his skin intact as it had started coming off in flakes.

?Have mercy on his body,? the medical staff told Doris, as she stubbornly refused to turn off the life support machines, insisting that Robert would wake up one day. With a scarf around her balding head, she fought for his life, even threatening to sue the hospital to keep the well-intentioned staff at bay.

Around this time too, Robert?s business partners started pressuring her for their share in their rental businesses. With Robert dead, they said, he had lost his shares.

Backed up against the wall and feeling drained from a chemotherapy session one evening, Doris prayed ?God, you know my situation. I cannot afford to lose my husband right now, but Thy will be done.? Having lifted her burden to God, she slept peacefully that night.

Two days later, Robert miraculously awakened. ?All that time I experienced a helicopter crash and woke up thinking I was in the hospital because of that accident,? he said.

It took him two months to be ?mentally together,? Doris said. Now it was his turn to see her through her chemotherapy ordeal. ?He would pray with me at 2 in the morning when I felt that ants were crawling up my skin and I was being burned alive. He cried with me and held me until I calmed down.? The chemo sessions were traumatic. Doris lost her hair and suffered from blackened lips and fingernails; her gums broke out in sores and all she could take in for six months was watermelon.

To this day, Doris cannot imagine how she survived that difficult period. ?Everything was dark. I couldn?t see tomorrow.? After almost a year of intensive cancer treatment, Doris is on her fifth year of being cancer-free and has long been back on stage performing in her five-inch heels.

Their close and personal encounters with death have not only brought the Tibbets closer to each other, but also renewed their faith in God. ?Out of that tribulation, we re-ordered our priorities, and learned to live in the present,? Robert said.

To celebrate their new life, the couple, who met and fell in love 25 years ago, launched ?Doris,? a musical album produced by the Tibbets? own production company. The album contains 10 songs, six of which Doris wrote and arranged, including ?The Faith,? which speaks of her ordeal, and ?Thank You,? which she offers to God for the healing.

The album, whose songs offer a touch of jazz, pop and rhythm and blues, is registered in 190 countries, including the US.

The album launch was in Baguio City and became a sentimental journey back to Doris? childhood haunts and to where her friendship with Robert began.

She recalls how her father, her first avid fan and trainer, would set her as a 7-year-old on a horse and let her ride against the wind, while singing at the top of her voice to strengthen her vocal cords. Later, he formed the Vicente Soriano Bautista Promotions to help Doris and other new talents break into the music industry.

It was many years later, in the course of a singing career that has taken her all over the Philippines, as well as in Japan, various US Bases, Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, and Hawaii, that she met the US Air Force major who would eventually become her husband.

Doris was lead singer at the Halfway House in Camp John Hay in Baguio City when Robert walked in for a drink with friends. When they were introduced, she asked what his favorite song was. ?I don?t think you know it,? he answered, adding that it was ?Someone That You Used to Love? by Barbara Streisand.

?I will sing it for you if you come back tomorrow night,? she promised. She found herself in the library researching and rehearsing the song the next day. ?She sang it the minute I walked in the door and did it very well,? Robert recalled.

Six years later, Robert asked her out to dinner. ?For her to join me, I had to take the whole band,? he recalled, laughing at the memory. ?I?ve never regretted it.? Women?s Feature Service

?Doris,? the album, is available in Odyssey music stores. Doris can also be seen over Fliptunes, YouTube and more than 30 other websites around the world.