Mother meets boy who received late son's heart in emotional wedding moment
One mother is remembering her late son through the life of another young boy.
A touching video shot at a wedding on May 25 captures bride Kaci Wilson meeting 7-year-old Saleh Ahmad, the recipient of Wilson's deceased son Myles' heart, as the pair shed tears in an emotional embrace.
"At that moment, I remember I was crying a lot," Yara Ahmad, mother of Saleh, said in an interview with ABC News.
Saleh was born with a chronic heart condition and spent most of his first five years in the hospital, with three of those years spent on an organ recipient waitlist.
In April of 2023, when Wilson's young son, Myles Godfrey, died from injuries sustained in a car accident, his organs helped save the lives of multiple children, including Saleh, who received his heart.
"Tears. Crying. It's the tears of happiness, at the same time the tears of someone who just lost his life to save ours," Yara Ahmad said of Saleh receiving the heart.
"We tried to explain everything for him," Yara Ahmad said of her explanation of the circumstances to Saleh. "He knows he got a heart, he knows that there is someone called Myles up in the sky taking care of him. I know that we are very thankful."
The two parties kept in touch through the years, and Wilson invited Saleh and his family to attend her wedding.
"It's been two years. I was looking forward to meeting her," Yara Ahmad said.
Saleh's father added to the emotional gravity of the event by thinking to bring along a stethoscope so Wilson was able to hear her late son's heartbeat once again.
And to cap off the event and truly solidify the bond the two now share, Saleh walked with Wilson hand-in-hand down the aisle.
In a text message to ABC News, Wilson said, this was "the closest I've felt to Myles since the accident."
