A bride donated bone marrow to save the baby from a stranger. The child lived – and was his flower girl

Then, while Skye was recovering from the second bone marrow transplant, Savren-McCormick said that one of her eyes began to swell and that the doctors diagnosed her with a second form of cancer – a disease lymphoproliferative post-transplantation. He had attacked his eyelid on both sides of his neck, chest, and spine, his father said.

She needed chemotherapy, which meant that she needed another transplant

Savren-McCormick Because there are donation regulations, they returned to the Be the Match registry and found another donor – this time using peripheral blood stem cells instead of bone marrow. But, says the father, "if Hayden had not donated his bone marrow, our daughter would not have done it [to] it allowed us to survive."

She did not save the toddler.

"It has always been the other way around," she said. "She helped me, she saved me … She is the real heroine."

During the past year, the two families remained in contact but never met face to face. In March, Ryals sent Skye a very special gift for her third birthday – an Elsa doll from the movie "Frozen", a poppy cover "Trolls" and an invitation to her wedding.

"I said that I wanted them to know how much I love them and how much they are wanted," said Ryals, who said that although she knew it was long, she mentioned how nice it would be for Skye to be her flower girl.

Skye's father said that the toddler was on oxygen and that he was fighting graft-versus-host disease. However, he said, as the date of marriage approached, Skye was getting better, so they took her to Hartford.

Ryals and Skye met for the first time at the church a day before the wedding.Ryals said that when she entered, she was overwhelmed by emotion.She walked towards Skye, she said, and dropped to his knees.

Ryals said that Skye's mother asked the toddler who was Ryals and she replied, "Hay-Hay," her nickname for Ryals. Assa Ryals.

"It was like a fairy tale," says Ryals. She said that she thought, "I can not believe that I finally meet this little girl. […] On June 9, Skye entered the chapel, opening the way with flower petals, as she had practiced – stepping, walking, dropping – her father said

Ryals said that There was not a dry eye in the church.

"It was amazing to me how many heart chords she was pulling all at once," she says.

Then Ryals went down the alley to marry his fiance, Adrian, wearing a draped bouquet of something from Skye and his parents – a gold medallion with the Skye photo hidden from one aside and a message engraved on the other: "This heart beats with yours."

"I have never been able to describe our connection, I have never been able to explain it," she said. "It was the way the more perfect than I've ever heard describe. "

During the ceremony, Skye was sitting quietly on the steps of the altar, playing with leaves on a nearby fern and shooting the bow on her dress, 19659002] Ryals said that she felt that she had known Skye and her parents all her life.

Skye's father agreed.

"C & # It's like we had a new family in Alabama and it was happy. "