When Ralph Duquette was fell into a coma during his chemotherapy treatment for leukemia, his daughter, Heather, gave up on the idea that her father would ever be able to walk her down the aisle.
Upon waking from his coma, doctors discovered that Ralph was blind in one eye, and that he had lost some of his motor functions – including walking.
But despite his daughter’s doubts, Ralph wasn’t going to let anything stop him from accompanying his little girl down the aisle on her big day – not even relearning how to walk.
“When a father is presented with their daughter for the first time, they know how it’s gonna end,” Ralph told WCSH6. “That they’ll have to give her away and I’d have to walk her down the aisle one of these days, you know? I’ve known that for all my life, and when I got ill it was like, it’s never gonna happen.”
In preparation for the day, Ralph underwent extension physical therapy and training in order to teach his body how to walk again after being wheelchair bound for months.
“It was very difficult to stand and take small steps at a time,” Ralph said, “Then we gradually got to the back door, down the stairs, figured out the length that I had to walk from the stairs, like 50 feet down. I fell a few times. We did that two or three times a day.”
It was hard work, but the look on his daughter’s face when he stepped out of his wheelchair was priceless.
Surprising Heather for her wedding day, Ralph waiting until she was at the foot of the aisle before folding up the footrest of his wheelchair and stepping up to greet her.
“My dad was helped up out of the wheelchair and walked over to me and I just started crying,” said Heather, “I was scared and nervous and sad and happy all at the same time.”
In front of Heather’s 75 wedding guests, Ralph slowly but surely escorted his beautiful daughter to her waiting husband-to-be with only one little stumble along the way.
Understandably, the entire crowd was in tears by the end.
Heather revealed that Ralph did so well on his walk, he even had the strength to perform the father-daughter dance with her at the end of the night.
“It’s difficult to talk about with people and to watch the video because it makes me want to just start crying again, because I remember how I felt and I know I’ll never feel anything like that again,” Heather said.
“It was a miracle. It was something that just made my day more than I could expect it to be.”
