A British mother who was able to dance with her severely disabled son on her wedding day thanks to a special harness her husband designed says the moment was truly a dream come true for her.
A video showing Jo Atrill being brought to tears during the dance at her February wedding has spread across Facebook since it was uploaded last week, earning more than 1.4 million views as of Monday morning.
Atrill, who married her husband, Martin Atrill, in February, says it was a complete surprise when he emerged with her 13-year-old son, Alex, strapped to his chest so the two could have the first dance of the night together.
“It’s very emotional. You can see in the video I break down, but it wasn’t sadness or anything; it was just pure joy that I could dance with my son,” Atrill told CTVNews.ca from her home in Somerset, England.
“It was like everyone else in the room kind of disappeared -- even Martin, because it was just like the two of us.”
Alex has severe physical and developmental disabilities from cerebral palsy he developed while in the womb. But Atrill believes Alex understood what was happening and how important it was to her to dance to their favourite song, Coldplay’s “Yellow.”
“He just stared up into my eyes the whole time the song was on. And I was singing along to him,” she says.
“I sort of went from laughing to singing to sobbing. Because I never thought I’d be married or meet someone. I’ve been a single mum most of Alex’s life. And I was feeling so blessed that he was still around to share this moment. So all of that was going through me. It was just massively emotional.”
Homemade harness
It was only after the dance that Atrill learned that Martin had designed and sewed the harness himself after eight months of work and several failed prototypes.
He finally found the right fit with a combination of a parachute harness, a rock-climbing harness, a seat belt and a lot of steel thread.
“He kept staying up late at night saying he wanted to watch TV and I was getting irritated, thinking this is not how you start married life, watching TV! But actually, what he was doing was chopping up these various harnesses and putting them together and then trying Alex out in them during the day when I was out,” she says.
Fighting back tears! This was a moment I'll never forget . The groom strapped his new step-son (who suffers from extreme cerebral palsy) to his chest to allow his mother to fulfill her wish of having her first ever dance with him on her wedding day❤ Unfortunately Alex is seriously unwell and sadly they do not know how much time they have left with him. They are looking to take him on a once in a lifetime trip to disneyland, but due to the complex nature of his medical care, this is going to cost a lot of money. Please donate to this page to help them achieve this here: https://www.gofundme.com/5cp4ed5t Thank you x
Posted by Jamie Mathias Music, Weddings & Personal Songs on Sunday, March 26, 2017
The harness was designed to tilt forward to let Alex keep his arms free to wrap around his mother. But it also had to be strong enough to bear his 40 kilograms of weight.
All went well – until Martin broke his wrist trying to remove the harness after the dance.
As someone tried to assist with the removal, all of Alex’s weight went on Martin’s hand, causing his wrist to fracture. He didn’t even notice until the next day when his arm swelled up and he ended up in the emergency room.
But those kinds of sacrifices are not out of character for Martin, Atrill says.
“This is the kind of thing he does. He worked so hard to provide so many surprises for the wedding. I’m too terrified to tell him anything I like the look of because before I know it he’s gone and gotten it. He’s just incredibly generous and does everything he can for all of us,” she says.
It was their wedding singer, Jamie Mathias, who asked to post a video of the dance on Facebook, but Atrill admits she was wary.
“It took us a long time to decide it would be a good thing to do, to be honest. The internet can be not a nice place to be, sometimes,” she says.
But the positive feedback has been “a really lovely surprise,” she says, noting that while there has been the odd unpleasant comment, most people have said only kind things.
Dreams of Disney
Now that she and Alex have joined families with Martin’s two children, Harry, aged 8, and Skye, age 6 (along with two dogs, three cats and a tortoise), they hope to take Alex to Disneyworld.
Alex’s health has not been good of late and she’s not sure how much time he might have left. He has developed a few forms of sleep apnea and regularly stops breathing at night and has to be revived by a nurse who stays up through the night to monitor him.
He has also developed several infections and even had his first seizure that required him to be resuscitated while Jo and Martin were on their honeymoon.
One of Alex’s caregivers has started a GoFundMe page to help the family pay for the tens of thousands of dollars it will cost to transport Alex, his caregivers, his equipment and his family to either Disneyland Paris or Disney World in Florida.
Atrill does a lot of fundraising for organizations that have helped Alex, such as children’s hospitals, Ronald McDonald House and the Make-a-Wish Foundation. “So this is the first time anyone has fundraised for us, which is kind of weird. It feels a little bit strange to be on the other end of it,” she says.
“It’s very kind. Everyone’s been very generous.”
If all goes well, they hope to make the trip this summer, allowing them to have yet another of their family’s dreams come true.
