LETCHER COUNTY, Ky. (LEX NEWS) — Brooklyn Dotson and Noah Waters say their love story is decades in the making. What started as childhood friendship eventually became something more.
"It got to the point we were FaceTiming each other 8 hours a day," Dotson, who's from Letcher County, told LEX News. Waters is from Ohio.
"I realized that I kind of had feelings and it was after my birthday," Dotson said. "My mom had contacted him and was like, I think Brooke likes you and that same weekend he came to see me."
Dotson and Waters started dating, eventually got engaged, and set a date for this September in Monticello, with a view overlooking Lake Cumberland.
For Dotson, planning a wedding is even more special because growing up wasn't guaranteed. She's able to walk down the aisle at 24 years old because of a liver transplant she received as a toddler.
"I was just a little baby, and at the time before my transplant, the doctors only gave me 3 days to live, and they told my mom to go ahead and call the funeral home and make my arrangements, and she didn't give up on me," Doston said.
She was diagnosed with a rare liver condition at just a few months old and underwent the life-saving procedure at Cincinnati Children's Hospital in 2003.
Waters is also passionate about organ donation, because he was just a little boy when his older brother Michael expressed his desire to become an organ donor.
"Even as even as a kid he'd do anything for anybody," he said. "I mean, he taught me how to ride a bike. He was there for me for surgeries I've had and stuff like that. He was a sweet kid. Probably he was way more mature than he needed to be."
Tragically, Michael was 10 years old when he was hit and killed by a car in Dayton, Ohio. His parents honored his wish; transplant patients received his limbs, heart, eyes, lungs and kidneys. His liver went to a little girl in Kentucky.
"I get to enjoy life because of him and I get to live and hopefully honor his memory the best way that I can," Dotson said.
"And you get his last name," Waters added.
For Dotson, Michael's donation wasn't just a second chance, it was the connection to her future husband, Noah.
"I'd say he probably knew what his purpose was," he told LEX News' Evelyn Schultz. "I had no idea that my brother was gonna save my wife's life 20 years later."
"A lot of people tell us that we should have a Hallmark movie," Dotson added.
Noah's cousin Beth Poteet is the one who contacted LEX News about the story, knowing it needed to be told. She says their family's faith led them here.
"I look now and I think God always has a plan, and it was for them to be together to carry on our family's legacy through Michael," Poteet said. "I believe that Michael probably had a little hand in helping them get together as well."
Their wedding in September is the next chapter in a story that began with Michael's "yes" to organ donation and will end an "I do."
"At the end of the day we're regular people," Waters said. "We just met in an extraordinary way."
To learn more about organ donation and the registry, click here.
