You better have the tissues handy. In honor of Dwyane Wade's final season, Budweiser released a commercial celebrating the Miami Heat star's impact beyond basketball, and yep, it is quite the tear jerker. For months, Wade has been swapping jerseys with fellow NBA greats, but ahead his last game, Bud surprised him with five more.
The ad opens with Wade center court. "I have no idea who's coming, like literally no idea," he says, laughing. One by one, five individuals arrive to share firsthand how he's personally touched their lives. The sister of a Parkland Shooting victim thanked Wade for honoring her late brother. "You're not Wade the basketball player, the legend," she began. "You're the human being that took the time and on his own wrote my brother's name on his shoe. And you care."
If somehow you haven't already dissolved into a puddle of your own tears (aka me, currently), there's more. Dwyane paid a woman's entire college tuition, took another on a shopping spree after losing her home in a fire, and inspired a young man struggling in a low-income Miami neighborhood. They all came to extend a sincere thank you—and make us sob hysterically.
Just into the clip, Wade's mother Jolinda arrived. "You were the joy of my life, but I was dropping the ball," she began, her voice cracking. She touched on her personal history with addiction and prison stints. "On that road, I noticed you kept showing up and you'd come and see about me. And Dwyane, because you believed in me, when I got out of prison, I was a different woman." Though she didn't have a jersey to gift her son, she handed over a purple robe that he had previously gifted her. "I am more proud of the man you have become than the basketball player," she said. "You are bigger than basketball."
The others followed suit. He received a graduation robe, a jersey the Parkland victim had worn in his last championship, and a blazer another had donned for his first job interview.
The heartfelt tribute has since taken the internet by storm with many fans tweeting out their emotional reactions. Even Wade's wife Gabrielle Union was shook. "Man, this captures so much of what @DwyaneWade means to people," she wrote. "I'm also bawling."
Soooo, if you need me, I'll be here—still sobbing.