Mom Was Lifted To Her Feet To Fulfill Her Dream Of Dancing With her Son On his Wedding Day

Emotional mom and son dance shared worldwide after mother passes away from ALS

Mom and son last dance

Scooter Hightower said he wanted to do something special for his mom whose last wish had been to attend her son’s wedding in Arrington, Tennessee.

With friends and family gathered around the dance floor, Scooter and his family wheeled his mother’s wheelchair into the middle of the room.

Terri Hightower, 57, had been diagnosed with the degenerative disease ALS – also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease – in December 2019. With her health failing, by the summer of 2020, she could no longer walk.

“I was wanting to do something really special for her because one of the things is when she was diagnosed with ALS, she was waiting for two things in her life to happen before she wanted to go to the other side so to speak,” Hightower said. “She was waiting for her granddaughter to be born, my niece, and she is going on six months now, seven months, and then she was waiting for our wedding. She wanted to be at our wedding.”

As around 150 guests watched on, Hightower and his dad helped his mom out of her wheelchair to dance together, then all the children joined in, bringing tears to everyone’s eyes.

Ten days after the ceremony, Terri passed away surrounded by her friends and family after losing her battle with ALS.

“We had a last call for mom over the radio that went through the hospital. Everybody in the hospital heard it. We had a flyover from LifeFlight, MedEvac. You know, everybody knew her. She changed so many lives,” Hightower said. “It’s incredible. I can’t even begin to scratch the surface of how many people she impacted in her life because she was impacting millions of people before I was even thought of.”

Hightower is using the video to spread awareness about ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Right now, there is no cure.

“I never really knew what ALS was, Lou Gehrig’s Disease. I never really investigated it, and a lot of people probably don’t because it’s very rare,” Hightower said. “When mom found out, I was researching and doing all this stuff and you know it’s heartbreaking to read the side effects of ALS. Knowing that there’s no cure for ALS, you know I just want to get the message out there. It’s a disgusting disease and whoever is going through it with families, you’re not the only one. There are many families out there that are having to go through the same exact thing.”

Most EMOTIONAL Mother-Son Dance EVER

“It means everything. I would cherish that video for the rest of my life. I can’t even really put into words what it means to me because it’s just, it’s everything,” Hightower said. “It’s crazy the impact it’s had on all these other people that are reaching out to us from all over the world. It’s Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa. We have people all over the world reaching out to us. It’s impacting their families as well.”

“This video to me is everything. It’s not only helping me get through the tough times I and my family and are going through, but it helping other people realize what ALS is.”

Hightower is offering families dealing with ALS this advice: “Don’t be afraid to reach out and talk to somebody. Don’t bottle it in.”