My dad had dreamed of walking me down the aisle since I was little. Even after doctors warned he was getting weaker, he refused to give that up.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m taking my girl down that aisle.\u201d<\/p>\n
On my wedding day, my uncle pushed Dad\u2019s wheelchair while I walked beside him. Halfway down, Dad squeezed my hand three times\u2014our lifelong signal for \u201cI love you.\u201d<\/p>\n
When we reached Daniel, my husband, Dad touched his jacket pocket. I assumed he was steadying himself.<\/p>\n
Dad died 12 days later.<\/p>\n
Three weeks after the wedding, our photographer sent the gallery. Photograph 212 showed Dad\u2019s hand pressed against Daniel\u2019s pocket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was he doing?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
Daniel disappeared into our bedroom and returned holding an old photograph.<\/p>\n
It showed Dad as a young man holding newborn me.<\/p>\n
On the back, Dad had written:<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been holding her since this day. Now I\u2019m handing her to you. Take care of my girl. I trust you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel explained Dad had asked him to carry the photograph during our wedding.<\/p>\n
At the altar, Dad wasn\u2019t putting anything into Daniel\u2019s pocket.<\/p>\n
He was checking that the photograph was still there.<\/p>\n
Dad had originally planned for me to receive it that day\u2014but changed his mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t give it to her today,\u201d he told Daniel. \u201cShe\u2019s having a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n
That broke me.<\/p>\n
Even while dying, Dad refused to let his goodbye become the center of my wedding.<\/p>\n
I thought he\u2019d forgotten to let go of my hand.<\/p>\n
He hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
He was simply taking his time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My dad had dreamed of walking me down the aisle since I was little. Even after doctors warned he was getting weaker, he refused to give that up. \u201cI\u2019m taking my girl down that aisle.\u201d On my wedding day, my uncle pushed Dad\u2019s wheelchair while I walked beside him. Halfway down, Dad squeezed my hand …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9314","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\/9314","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=9314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9316,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9314\/revisions\/9316"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}