By Hoa Quach

One could say a couple’s wedding officiant will always be a part of the couple.

But, in the case of North Park’s Kevin Zempko and Erica Wacker, it’s the groom that will always be a part of the officiant. That’s because Zempko donated his bone marrow to his officiant, Dianne Mahura, in 2008.

After meeting face to face in 2009, the two have maintained a close bond, enough so that Zempko and his fiancé asked Mahura to officiate their Oct. 11 wedding in San Diego.

“It means the world to me personally and to Erica as well,” Zempko said. “I have a fantastic relationship with Dianne and her family. It comes naturally; nothing is forced.”

Their connection started two months after Mahura was diagnosed with leukemia. At the age of 44, Mahura, a mother of three, was told she wouldn’t live without a transplant.

“I almost fainted when they told me I would need to take a year of my life to recover, and needed a stem cell transplant to possibly live,” said Mahura, who resides in Calgary. “I saw eight people die in the same ward with leukemia while I was in there.”

After learning that not one of her four siblings was a match, she was told a 32-year-old man was.

Meanwhile, in another part of North America, a Marine had agreed to donate his bone marrow.

“I received a call from the [Department of Defense] Bone Marrow Program in November 2007, that’s when I first heard that there was a person in this world in need of my stem cells,” Zempko said. “By Feb. 4, 2008, I was sitting in a hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, sitting through a five-plus-hour surgery to harvest my bone marrow.”

After a successful surgery, the two were forbidden from contacting each other for a year because of a hospital policy.

“Instantly for a year we thought of him daily and what kind of person he was,” Mahura said. “It was so important for me to thank this man.”

Zempko said he thought about Mahura often too.

“I would think about this process for over a year,” Zempko said. “I ran a few marathons and dedicated those races to whoever this person was. When you’re training for a marathon and running a marathon for three to four-plus hours, you have a lot of time to think and reflect. I never thought twice about not allowing Dianne to contact me. [I] was anxious to hear her story.”

A year after the surgery, the two began emailing each other. Then in May 2009, Mahura flew to San Diego to meet Zempko and to cheer for him during another marathon.

“The first time I met him was very emotional,” Mahura said. “We were both excited and shaking.”

But the meeting was more than just one between a donor and his recipient. The two became friends who visited each other despite the miles between them.

“We see them about twice a year and we text all the time,” Mahura said. “Every time he comes to Calgary, I have a huge backyard party.”

Last summer, Mahura later met Wacker, who Zempko began dating in 2011. It was later an easy decision to ask Mahura to officiate the couple’s marriage.

“When looking for an officiant, we wanted someone we were close with and knew us both,” Wacker said. “Kevin’s connection with Dianne is incredible, she has such a great spirit about her, just like Kevin.”

Mahura said she was shocked and speechless when the couple asked her to serve as their officiant, but just like her and Zempko, it seemed fate had brought the couple together.

“He was a 10 out of 10 bone marrow match, but more importantly a 10 out of 10 match made in heaven for [Wacker],” Mahura said. “I was told I likely wouldn’t live without the transplant. It was very rare that we were a perfect match.”

Mahura told their story in front of more than the 130 attendees at Zempko’s wedding at the Bristol Hotel in Downtown San Diego.

“I appreciate everyday and am incredibly thankful for Kevin,” Mahura said.

—Contact Hoa Quach by visiting hoawrites.com.