An emotional wedding video of a wheelchair-bound mother severely affected by motor neurone disease (MND) dancing with her eldest son on his big day has gone viral, with people describing the moment as both heart-breaking and heart-warming at the same time.
Kathy Poirer was watching her eldest son Zak get married in a moving ceremony in their native Florida.
Despite being unable to walk, Kathy, with the help of her other two children, was able to dance with her eldest child on his big day.
The moment was captured on video and has since gone viral, as Kathy said the dance was a dream come true.
“I just really wanted that moment with my son,” Poirer told Sunrise.
“There are so many milestones in their life and you look forward to them and I was afraid I wouldn’t have that opportunity.”
“It truly is an expression of a mother and her son and their love for each other.”
Kathy was diagnosed with MND more than three years ago, and has bravely fought the diagnosis and challenged the odds against her ever since.
“I prayed every day that I would make it long enough to dance with him, and I fight every day for my life,” she said.
Motor neurone disease is a condition that affects the body’s brain and the nerve cells called motor neurones.
According to MND Australia: “Motor neurones normally carry messages from the brain to the muscles via the spinal cord. The messages allow people to make voluntary movements like walking, swallowing, talking and breathing.”
There is currently no cure for MND, and the condition is known to drastically reduce life expectancy.
Kathy is devoting the rest of her life to bringing awareness to this devastating disease, while encouraging people not to take life for granted.
“What I wanted to do was make people aware that this can happen to you in a heartbeat and just live every moment to the fullest – you never know when it’s gonna get taken away,” she said.
Image credits: Sunrise
This article first appeared on OverSixty.