Father re-learns to walk, surprises daughter with amazing wedding gift

Ralph Duquette has proven that perseverance is the best wedding gift a father can give his daughter.

After he was diagnosed with leukemia in 2012, Duquette began to face many obstacles: he went through extensive chemotherapy, had to start using a wheelchair, was in a coma for five days, and also became blind in one eye. Despite these difficulties, he never gave up and made it to his daughter’s wedding on October 10th.

Prior to this momentous day in her life, daughter Heather Duquette had accepted that her father wasn’t going to walk her down the aisle. “We had talked about it about a year ago but we realized in the condition he was in it just wasn’t going to be possible,” she told ABC News. As for her inspirational father, he had other plans.

Right when she began to walk down the aisle, the music stopped. Someone then went over to assist Ralph out of his wheelchair, so that he could surprise his daughter and the entire wedding party. Unbeknownst to everyone else, the devoted dad spent this past summer working with physical therapists so he could walk his daughter down the aisle.

“When I saw him get up and come towards me I was overwhelmed,” Heather Duquette admitted. “I started crying uncontrollably in front of everybody.”

Before their friends and family, both Heather and Ralph made their way down the aisle. At one point, he stumbled, but caught himself and pushed on. “When she grabbed my hand I sort of felt safe and walked down,” Mr. Duquette revealed. “It was so amazing, she was so happy. It was something that every father dreams of.” As if this wasn’t amazing enough, Heather’s dad also officiated the ceremony and danced with his little girl during the father-daughter dance.

To sum up this heartwarming experience, the bride said, “It was the biggest day of my life and my father gave me the biggest surprise of my life.”

[Image via Twitter]