Weddings are often the most memorable day of a person's life.
When getting married, you want to be surrounded by the people you love most in life. They are there to bear witness to the union between you and the love of your life.
For Jewel MacLennan, she knew as soon as she got engaged in 2014 that she was going to have to wait a while before she was walking down the aisle.
The reason Jewel had to wait is that if she wanted her father there, he needed to finish healing first!
In 2011, Jewel's dad, Vance Easter, was in a serious accident at work. He was working alone on the farm when a piece of slag fell and caused his torch hose to become a flamethrower, practically.
Vance ran out of the farm, completely covered in flames. Thankfully, Jewel was home. She rushed out, as two family friends, who happened to be driving by, came to help as well.
[H/T: Yahoo]
They were able to douse Vance with water as they waited for an ambulance to come. “His injuries were very critical, extensive, and was a roller coaster ride for our family,” Jewel explained to ABC News.
Vance's recovery was not an easy one. He was in the hospital for 51 months, where he was in a coma, got numerous skin graft surgeries, got dialysis for kidney failure, had two heart attacks, and two strokes.
Because his burns were so severe, they affected his muscles, and that meant his recovery was grueling as he relearned basic things, even as simple as lifting his fingers.
“Eventually it progressed to sitting up in bed, sitting up on the side of the bed and then to baring weight on his feet to standing,” Jewel said to ABC News. “Eventually he was willing to try to take some steps, to walking with crutches, to walking without crutches, and now jogging and dancing.”
It took nearly five years, but Vance was able to recover and walk Jewel down the aisle, just as she had wanted him to.
“I remember telling him when he was in a coma fighting for his life, crying to him, ‘Please live, please don't give up. I want you here to walk me down the aisle and have our father-daughter dance."
Thank goodness that he was able to get better and make this big day extra special for his daughter!
You can see the emotional moment where Vance got to walk his daughter down the aisle in the video below!
