A white cop carries a black baby girl, and she snuggles against his chest. People didn’t think much of it until the story behind the picture came out, and they sobbed uncontrollably. Lieutenant Kenneth Knox stretched out his hands towards the chubby baby girl on the floor of her parents’ living room. She garbled incoherent words and just stared at him.
After a few seconds, she looked down at her toy phone. She’d been playing with it, and it appeared as if she was contemplating which was better: keep playing with her toy or accept the extended hands Kenneth made the choice. He was here for her. He picked her up from the ground, half expecting her to burst into tears, so he would put her down.
To his surprise, the baby didn’t even squirm one bit. The buttons of his uniform caught her attention, and she started playing with them, babbling incessantly. ‘Mayavi likes you for sure,’ her mother Mona beamed when she saw them. Kenneth loved hearing those words. It had been a while since he carried a baby, but he liked to think that he hadn’t forgotten how. He bounced the baby on his hip, lifted her high above his head, and in return, she shrieked for joy.
He laughed along with her, making faces that made her laugh even more, and that delighted him. The baby’s father, John Tyus, suggested that he posed for a picture with her. Kenneth liked the idea and tried to hold Mayavi still, but she squirmed and pulled away. She wanted to keep playing, but Kenneth was ruining the fun by trying to place her in a pose. Her parents laughed when they saw him struggling with Mayavi. They told him that unless she had something in her hands or to look at, she would keep moving.
Their words sparked an idea. Kenneth asked the couple which of them managed to entertain Mayavi more. It was Mona. So, she went behind Kenneth, who was holding baby Mayavi against his chest, and started putting on a show for her. Daughter pulled in by her mother’s antics, Mayavi leaned to the side to get a better look. While one of Kenneth’s large hands covered her back, the other served as a chin rest for her as she watched her mother. John Tyus was ready with the camera when he saw that a pose had been achieved. He snapped. He took several shots from diverse angles in a few seconds because he knew that’s all he had before Mayavi got bored and moved out of the position.
Later, Kenneth put the baby girl down to play with her toys. Luckily, she didn’t fuss. John Tyus showed Kenneth the pictures he’d taken. He took his time scrolling through them until he found his favorite. Then John Tyus sent all the photos to Kenneth’s phone. Soon, Kenneth was set to leave, but Mona frowned. He couldn’t leave yet because he just got there. He explained that he just came to visit baby Mayavi from work because of the incident the previous day. Mona shook her head, ‘Vly, she wouldn’t let him leave until he had dinner, which was almost ready.’
The sound of dinner was tempting to Kenneth. He knew how great of a cook Mona was. In fact, the smell of her cooking had been wafting into his nostrils and making his mouth water. He didn’t have such delicacies waiting for him at his house, so for that reason, he remained with them for dinner. Dinner turned out to be a festival fair, as there were numerous food options that tasted heavenly on Kenneth’s taste buds. The atmosphere was celebratory, as though Thanksgiving holidays came early because it was only September. The following day, Kenneth posted a photo of him and Mayavi on his Facebook page with a brief caption. Hours later, the internet went wild.
That post became his most viral one till date. People were commenting, liking, sharing, and in wonder: was this caption really true? Some people thought he might be exaggerating to get attention. After all, he was running for Sheriff at the time and needed as much visibility as he could get. People who knew John Tyus and Mona in person knew that Mayavi was theirs. They hadn’t known that such a horrid thing had happened, and they immediately called the couple to get answers.
The couple replied that Kenneth’s caption was entirely true and that nothing in his caption was magnified to make him look like a hero. People in their Georgian country were touched when they heard the couple vouch for Kenneth and were moved to tears by the amazing thing he did. For 25 years, Kenneth had served in the forest as a cop. It wasn’t an easy job, and he’d gone through many hardships both in training and in practice. There had been many awesome moments too, but Kenneth considered his connection to Mayavi the most remarkable of all.
They had only been acquainted for 2 days, but she already had a special place in his heart. This was quite significant because only a month prior to meeting her, Kenneth had been miraculously saved from a bullet. It had happened that the shooting grounds where he’d been training cadets, a cadet had shot a target, and his bullet had gone through it, ricocheted on a solid rock, and landed straight at Kenneth’s chest. It had fallen at his feet, and he picked it up. That bullet still had impacted enough to have heard him, but it hadn’t. Kenneth had shared this amazing testimony of God’s protection on his Facebook page. There had also been times in service where he’d survived near-death situations that left them with scars. A few of them had been so ugly he had tattooed over them to make them easier to look at.
Yet even after experiencing such marvelous miracles, his encounter with Mayavi was most memorable to him. Kenneth was an outstanding man with two beautiful grown-up daughters whom he was close with. They adored and admired their father for being present for them despite his ever-shifting schedule as a cop. He had been there for major events in his daughters’ lives: their first walk, their first speech, their first day at kindergarten, graduation ceremonies, and anything else that they considered important. They often told them year after year that they awarded them best father in the world.
Unfortunately for Kenneth, he hadn’t been lucky with love. He had been divorced from his wife for many years due to irreconcilable differences. They both decided to end it mutually because they didn’t want to become people who constantly shouted at each other. They also didn’t want to set that pattern of relationship for their daughters.
Kenneth had wanted them to work things out in any way possible. He had involved their spiritual leaders at church, mutual friends, and even therapy, which he had always been hesitant about. After going through all of these, Kenneth’s mind had been opened to see that he and his wife couldn’t do well as lovers. They were better off as friends. It had hurt so much, but the realization had given him strength to go through with their divorce and heal.
He had tried to date after that, but three failed relationships later, he had crossed off romantic love from his mind. Instead, he’d chosen to turn his energy to improving his community and supporting his daughters wherever they needed him. That had given him something to live for. However, the more Kenneth had shown up for his community, the more he had found the purpose and wanted to improve things. That had birthed his desire to run for Sheriff.
As a cop, there was only so much he could do, but as a sheriff, he was in a position of authority to enforce laws that would be beneficial to the county. He had willingly poured his money, time, and energy into this pursuit and done so selflessly, ignoring naysayers. On the day that changed Kenneth’s life forever, he had woken up tired. His campaign had been struggling, and he wasn’t getting traction like he expected. He had been tempted to give up. It had also been a work day, and he had an early shift, but he hadn’t been up for it. So he had called a colleague and swapped shifts for later, at which point his partner had had to come over to his house to pick him up.
Kenneth had prayed to God for strength and optimism because he had been feeling so down. There had been a sense of foreboding for their shift. They had been patrolling residential areas when an emergency call had come in from the Parham residence. Their six-month-old baby was dying. Kenneth hadn’t known the baby yet, but there had been a stirring in his heart unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He had found himself jolted with adrenaline, had taken reins off the car, and rushed to the scene.
He knew the Parhams; they were a lovely black couple who ran a thriving restaurant he loved to eat at. While the Parhams had waited for help, they had been restless. They had initially called an ambulance, which had been delayed, so they had called the cops for help. They had reasoned that many cops were trained for emergency situations and might be of help to them. Mona had been whimpering like a wounded animal, while John Tyus had fisted his hands and wanted to punch a wall to let out his frustration. They had been watching their baby gasping for air and slowly losing her grip on life, yet they had been helpless to do anything about it.
They had already taken turns administering CPR, but it hadn’t worked. They had stripped her naked and beaten her back, but that yielded nothing. John Tyus and Mona’s marriage had already been under strain before this incident. For months, they had been living as co-parents and business partners. They had tried to keep their cold war between themselves, but John Tyus had been heavily taxed emotionally and wanted to move out. All of this was happening because years ago, John Tyus had been in a serious relationship with another woman, intending to marry her.
But that woman had left him for a rich man. At the time, John Tyus had been trying to get his business off the ground. Mona was already in his life and had been someone he worked with. He had leaned on her heavily in his hard times. This had led to some sweet moments, and they had kissed when things had been supposed to start picking up between them. John Tyus’s ex had returned to the picture; she’d been gone for almost a year, and in that time, his restaurant business had taken off. He was much more comfortable. She had wanted him back, and he had found himself torn.
Mona had felt betrayed and had acted distantly towards him for months. During that time, John Tyus had seen that his ex wasn’t trustworthy, and that dawned on him that the woman he loved was Mona. Begging for Mona to be with him had been difficult. She had seen firsthand that he had a soft spot for his ex. She didn’t want to have a relationship with a man who hadn’t moved on from another woman. Angry tears had run down her face as she told him this.
She had admitted that her heart was aching because he hadn’t fallen in love with her first and would always think of the other woman as his first love. Hearing this admission, John Tyus had fallen on his knees and begged her for a chance. He had told her that there was no one else for him other than her and that he’d been foolish to think otherwise. He had promised her that he would never make her feel like second best. While they were together, Mona had been moved by his earnest plea, and she’d accepted to be his girlfriend. A few months later, he proposed, and they got married while pregnant with Mayavi. Mona had received the text; it had been a picture of John Tyus asleep and bare-chested on a strange bed.
She had confronted him about it while trembling in anger. She had refused to listen to his explanations and called him a cheater. She couldn’t believe that he had been capable of cheating on his pregnant wife. She despised them for it. Mayavi had been born a few weeks afterward. For her sake, they’d been trying to work together, but Mona had been so bitter. She had tried to focus on her baby, but by some silly mistake, that baby she treasured as everything got a cereal stuck in her throat. Mona had discovered Mayavi breathing strangely an entire hour later after feeding her.
It had crippled her with guilt that her baby was suffering and might possibly pass away because she hadn’t been more careful. It was in that moment that it dawned on Mona how utterly pointless her bitterness had been. Here she was, about to lose her child and her marriage. Her entire life had flashed before her eyes. She could have forgiven John Tyus, whatever his mistakes were, because she loved him and he had been so good to her, besides that one incident. Even after she had started treating him coldly, fortunately, Kenneth had arrived on the scene, checked that Mayavi’s breathing had been indeed blocked by something, and saved her throat with his finger, but he had gotten no result. It had been scary seeing her turn more blue by the second. Out of nowhere, he had gotten inspiration to do something he’d never heard of before: reverse CPR.
He had sucked air out of the baby’s mouth, and the cereal popped out. The baby had briefly smiled at him before she started crying at the top of her lungs. That had been a good sign that she would be okay. After Kenneth left, the couple had made up. John Tyus had explained that he was drunk that day. He had gone to see his ex for the last time to get an important business document, but she had drugged his drink to create the fake picture. She had been trying to tear them apart.
The couple had hugged and cried tears of joy. A week after saving Mayavi’s life, Kenneth received the call and was invited to be Mayavi’s godfather. It was an honor for him; he proudly accepted. This story made people cry. After the photo with the baby came out, he posted about it on his Facebook, and this part of it, ‘I am so overwhelmed at the public outpouring and support.
My Parham is now my goddaughter, which blesses me as a person and a man. I’m the one who was blessed with her being brought into my life. She is a beautiful child, and I know I will see her grow into a beautiful woman who can be whatever she wants. Mona and John Tyus, you’re wonderful parents, and I say thank you with all of my heart for allowing me to forever be a part of her blessed life. She has my heart and love, and I will always watch over her.’
People were struck; they kept praising God for Mayavi’s recovery and praising Kenneth for being a good cop. He continues to post pictures of Mayavi, calling her his angel and princess, even if he definitely didn’t do it for the likes. The event clearly endeared him to the whole community. ‘How would you react if a cop saved your toddler’s life?
