Parenting through grief is like walking through fog – you can’t see the path forward until suddenly, a light appears. For us, that light came in the form of Officer Miles at the county fair.
When my daughter collapsed in tears seeing the police badges – her first visceral reaction to her father’s absence – this stranger didn’t look away. He joined us on the ground, matching her smallness with his tall frame folded down to her level. His quiet “Mine did too” acknowledged her pain without diminishing it.
Their coloring session became sacred space amid the fair’s chaos. Later, when he remembered her months afterward and included her in police activities, he gave her back pieces of her identity she thought were lost. Watching her sit proudly in her father’s old patrol car during the station visit, I realized Officer Miles had done something extraordinary – he’d helped her find ways to carry her dad with her while still moving forward.
The greatest gifts often come unannounced – a shared coloring page, a kept promise, the gift of being seen in your pain. Officer Miles gave us all three, and changed our grieving journey in ways I’ll never forget.
