My sister, Laura, died two years before my wedding. She had always dreamed of standing beside me as my maid of honor, so I reserved a chair in the front row to keep her memory close.<\/p>\n
On the seat, I placed her photograph and a small bouquet of white roses.<\/p>\n
But as I began walking down the aisle, I froze.<\/p>\n
A woman I had never seen before was sitting in Laura\u2019s chair. The photograph had been moved, and she was holding the flowers in her lap.<\/p>\n
I felt anger rise inside me. That seat was sacred. I glanced toward my mother, but she looked just as confused.<\/p>\n
Before anyone could approach her, the stranger stood and walked toward me. Tears filled her eyes as she handed me a sealed envelope.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy name is Anna,\u201d she whispered. \u201cYour sister saved my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside the envelope was a letter Laura had written shortly before she died. Anna explained that she had received Laura\u2019s donated heart after years of waiting for a transplant.<\/p>\n
Laura had discovered that I was engaged and had asked Anna to attend the wedding someday if she could not.<\/p>\n
Then Anna gently placed my hand over her chest.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I felt a steady heartbeat beneath my palm.<\/p>\n
I broke down crying.<\/p>\n
The woman sitting in Laura\u2019s seat was not replacing my sister. She was carrying a part of her.<\/p>\n
I hugged Anna tightly, and together we returned to the chair.<\/p>\n
My sister had made it to my wedding after all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My sister, Laura, died two years before my wedding. She had always dreamed of standing beside me as my maid of honor, so I reserved a chair in the front row to keep her memory close. On the seat, I placed her photograph and a small bouquet of white roses. But as I began walking …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8618,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8616\/revisions\/8618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}