Abby Sayles was 4 years old and had a very clear plan.
She told her mother, Renee, that on Thursday she would marry Matt Hickling, her nurse at Albany Medical Center in New York. Abby had been battling leukemia for almost a year, going to the hospital every two weeks for her maintenance chemotherapy.
Renee notified Matt by text message the day before so it wouldn’t catch him off guard. What he did next wasn’t just say yes: together with his colleagues, he organized a complete wedding in less than 24 hours.
A hallway covered in rose petals, a bouquet donated by a local florist, cake, candy rings, and two nurses as bridesmaids who hummed the wedding march because there was no music. Her father couldn’t be there that day, so her mother gave her away at the altar.
“Matt, will you marry me?”, Abby asked. He said yes without hesitation. The video went viral with millions of views, and years later the family confirmed that Abby was still cancer-free.
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