Man Marries His 4-Year-Old Dying Daughter In Cancer Hospital To Fulfill Her Dream Of Becoming A Bride
A father in China fulfilled the wish of his 4-year-old cancer-stricken daughter, who wished to become a bride, by holding a special “wedding ceremony” in the hospital.
According to a Daily Mail report, the little girl, identified as Yaxin, was diagnosed with an advanced stage of leukemia and could die within two months if she is not treated. Her father, Yuan Dongfang, however, said that he doesn’t have enough money for the treatment.
Per local media reports, the heartbroken father said that his family has already spent all of their savings to save the child’s life and have even run into massive debts over the past two years.
Dongfang told journalists that he has already borrowed around 400,000 yuan ($58,000) to pay hospital bills but doctors told him that further treatment would cost him approximately another 600,000 ($87,000).
Mr. Dongfang said that his daughter told him that she wanted to be a bride and considering that she won’t be able to survive for long, he decided to hold the wedding at Yaxin’s ward at Beijing’s Boren Hospital. Dongfang acted as the groom of his daughter.
Per the report, the “wedding ceremony” took place on November 17 this year, where Mr. Dongfang knelt down to present a small bouquet of flowers to his daughter, who wore a make-shift wedding costume by wrapping a white towel on the head and another around her waist.
Father 'marries' cancer-stricken four-year-old dying daughter at hospital to help the girl realise her bride dream https://t.co/LjwvcVXlNg
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) December 19, 2018
According to a report by the Chinese outlet, btime.com, Mr. Dongfang was comforting his daughter a day after her operation when the idea occurred to him. He told reporters from btime.com that Yaxin — who is about to have her 5th birthday soon — was suffering from excruciating pain after the operation and kept asking him to take her home.
“I told her that we could go home when she recovers. She could go home to find her playmates, go to the zoo or school, find a job or get married.”
“Then she asked me ‘when would I be able to get married?’ And I answered: ‘When you grow to the age of me and your mother’,” Mr. Dongfang explained.
Yaxin then innocently asked her dad if he would like to be her “boyfriend” or “husband” to marry her. He fulfilled her wish even though she didn’t know what marriage means.
“She might not understand the meaning of getting married. She might just think that it is a wonderful thing and therefore wants to do it.”
The Daily Mail report further detailed that Yaxin’s family originally comes from Dandong, a city in north-east China which borders North Korea.
The family comes from a financially-disadvantaged background and Mr. Dongfang explained that his parents are old and ill and he had to work extra hours to pay for the medical bills of his elderly parents as well.
The situation for the family worsened in September 2016 when Yaxin, who was two years of age at the time, was diagnosed with “acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a type of blood cancer that mainly affects younger people and starts from young white blood cells in the bone marrow,” the report said.
