Just a year after her life was saved by a bone marrow donation, a three-year-old girl from California got to serve as a flower girl at her donor’s wedding.
Skye Savren-McCormick was diagnosed with leukemia just before her first birthday — and, as her mother told Good Morning America, she wouldn’t have survived had it not been for a generous stranger who donated her bone marrow.
That donor isn’t a stranger anymore, though: After donating the marrow to save Skye’s life, 26-year-old Hayden Hatfield Ryals invited the little girl to be the flower girl at her June 9 nuptials.
Bonded! Three-year-old Skye Savren-McCormic was flower girl at the wedding of her bone marrow donor, 26-year-old Hayden Hatfield Ryals
Sweetie: The little girl was diagnosed with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia in March 2016 before she turned one and had several bone marrow transplants
Skye hadn’t even turned one when her family learned she had juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia in March 2016. She went on to have a series of bone marrow transplants, with the final one occurring in April 2017.
After the transplants, Skye’s parents Talia and Todd Savren-McCormick wanted to thank the person whose donation saved their daughter’s life. Talia said Skye wouldn’t have lived without the help.
‘She was that sick,’ she said. ‘I feel like [Ryals] is such a huge success in why Skye was able to beat leukemia.”
Good heart: Her parents later contacted the stranger whose marrow Skye used, and they kept in touch
Not a dry eye in the house! Ryals sent Skye, who is doing better, an invitation to her June 6 wedding and asked her to be the flower girl
They requested to contact her through an organization called Be the Match, through which Ryals had made her donation.
They all them communicated over text and Facebook messages until Skye’s third birthday, when Ryals sent her a present — including an invitation to her wedding in June, and a request that the toddler be her flower girl.
The Savren-McCormicks traveled from California to Alabama for the wedding rehearsal, where Skye and Ryals met for the first time.
‘I walked up and I just dropped to my knees and all I could do was smile,’ Ryals told ABC’s World News Tonight.
‘I walked up and I just dropped to my knees and all I could do was smile,’ Ryals said of the first time they met, at her rehearsal
Friends forever: ‘I always tell people they’re smitten for one another,’ Skye’s mom (right, with Skye’s dad) said. ‘Skye calls her ‘Hay Hay’
At the wedding, Skye dressed up in a sweet white dress and a blue ribbon to walk down the aisle with her basket of flowers — most of which she threw on the ground in one giant handful.
‘One of the bridesmaids said everyone was ugly crying,’ said her mom.
The special occasion has cemented Skye and Ryals’ bond, and they hope to see each other again soon. Savren-McCormick said Ryals and her husband will be in their lives forever.
‘I always tell people they’re smitten for one another,’ she said. ‘Skye calls her ‘Hay Hay.’