Man rushes to include girlfriend's dying grandparents in his beachside proposal

— -- Toby Freeman knows how much the grandparents of his girlfriend of 18 months, Angi Grippo, mean to her.

So when her grandparents were told by doctors earlier this year that they each had only months to live, Freeman, of Jackson, Missouri, decided to abandon his plans for an October proposal and move up his big ask.

Grippo's grandmother, Doris DeFazio, 85, was diagnosed last year with stage-four lung cancer and recently suffered a decline in health. Her husband, Cosmo DeFazio, 92, is also in rapidly-declining health, according to Grippo's older sister, Sheri Grippo Cabral.

With their time short, the DeFazios asked their entire family -- four generations -- to join them in Florida, a site of many of their previous gatherings, for one last family vacation.

"My grandparents are not the kind of grandparents that bug you to spend time with you ... They’re really like not like that," Grippo Cabral told ABC News. "So for him to say that it's a big deal, we kind of all scurried to plan the trip."

The family gathered with the DeFazios in May in Beverly Hills, Florida, and planned a May 30 day trip to the beach. That's the day Freeman, a 35-year-old father of two, chose for popping the question.

"It was always a dream of hers to get married in front of her grandparents, but she didn't feel like with their health conditions that would happen," Freeman told ABC News. "So I figured I'd propose in front of her grandparents so they could be there for that, if for some reason they wouldn't be able to attend."

Aslyn, the 11-year-old daughter of Grippo Cabral, 35, served as a distraction. As she began to sing, Freeman got down on one knee. Grippo, 33, was absolutely shocked.

"I wanted to record [my niece] singing the song and as soon as I did, Toby's tapping me," the bride-to-be, who has a son from a previous relationship, recalled. "Just to have my grandparents there and my whole family there, it was wonderful."

The two plan to wed in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on May 12, 2018. It'll be bittersweet, Grippo said.

"When I told my grandpa the date over the phone, I said, 'I really wish you could come,'" she recalled. "[He said,] 'Maybe if I'm still around by then.' I was like, 'Ahhh!"

Still, the couple plans to honor her grandfather on their honeymoon.

Cosmo DeFazio served in World War II. The veteran bonded with his granddaughter by telling her old war stories such as about being extremely hungry and burying himself in foxholes. She even has his military company's flag tattooed on her back.

"Our goal is to hopefully one day save up enough money to retrace her grandfather's landing on Omaha Beach [in] Normandy, France, and going inland from there," Freeman said.

Grippo added, "I was shocked that he went through all of that and proud of the sacrifices he made for our country."