She Visited Her Dad’s Grave & Found Dozens of Cops There. What They Did Next Will Make You Cry!

“17-year-old Sierra visited her dad’s grave with her prom date, Brock, on her final prom day in high school. But when Sierra got to the grave, she was shocked to find dozens of cops there. What the officers did next will surely make you cry.

It was on a bright Summer Saturday evening that Sierra made her way to her late dad Rod’s grave. Sierra wasn’t making the visit alone. With her was her handsome prom date, Brock. It was her last High School prom, and Sierra had always wished to have a special kind of moment with their beloved late dad on such a special day. So, she had convinced Brock to accompany her to the grave that evening to take a few pictures with a framed picture of Rod, and he had been happy to oblige. But when the duo got to the grave site, they were both shocked beyond belief to find dozens of cops waiting for them.

To understand how Sierra felt, we need to go back a few years. Sierra was the only child of her parents, Rod and Betty Broadway. Rod and Betty were college sweethearts. The duo met at a campus retreat and kicked it off immediately. It was indeed love at first sight for them. Rod and Betty were both 22 then. Over time, the lovebirds became inseparable. Two years later, they both graduated from college and decided to move in together.

Barely two months later, Betty secured a decent-paying teaching job while Rod pursued his dream of working in the police force. Rod had always dreamt of becoming a cop since childhood. To him, helping others in need was his life’s calling. Hence, immediately after graduation, Rod had enlisted in the police department. He was sent on a 6-month mandatory training course. Upon the course completion, Rod was duly inducted into the city’s Police Department. Rod was happy; he felt his dream coming into reality at long last. Betty was also happy for him.

Rod and Betty decided to tie the knot together. Barely three years after moving in together, they had a modest wedding ceremony attended by family and friends as well as Rod’s colleagues from the police department. The new couple loved and cherished each other. After marriage, their love remained as evergreen as ever. But there was a problem. Five years into their marriage, the couple were still childless. As the weeks turned into months and the months into years, Betty became overly worried about their childlessness.

She became desperate to have a baby of her own. Betty’s job as an elementary school teacher didn’t help matters at all. The job exposed her to being around kids every day. Betty simply adored those bundles of joy, and the more she spent time with them, the more Betty wanted her own bundle of joy. She would often observe with sadness the sheer joy in parents’ eyes whenever they came to pick up their kids after school. Even though she did her best to hide it, in her desperation to have a child, Betty started running from one pregnancy expert to another, seeking solutions to her barrenness. To Rod, Betty’s desperation to have a baby was really getting out of hand.

Not that Rod didn’t want a baby, of course, he wanted one. But their childlessness had only lasted for 5 years, not decades. Rod would always reason. Besides, the plethora of fertility tests the couple had undertaken at Betty’s behest hadn’t found anything medically wrong with either of them. Hence, Rod always had the belief that it was just a matter of time before they had their own baby. “Just take it easy, darling. Everything will be fine. We will surely still have our own baby when the time comes,” Rod would always tell Betty. But Betty had no wish whatsoever to take it easy; she wanted a baby and she wanted it right now, and that was that.

Imagine Betty’s utter happiness when she got pregnant 7 years into their marriage. Her joys knew no bounds. Rod was also glad to see his beloved wife happy and fulfilled. “I told you so, didn’t I?” Rod would sometimes jokingly remind Betty of his prophecies, and the couple would always end up laughing it off. Betty took all her antenatal medical checkups religiously. 5 months into her pregnancy, the ultrasound scan revealed that she was expecting a baby girl. After the scan, Betty went on a shopping spree for baby stuff. She bought so much baby clothes and other baby stuff that a whole room was not enough to contain it all. So, the couple had to use two vacant rooms to store it.

The toys alone were enough to fill up a small-sized toy shop. Finally, it was time for Betty to go into labor. Rod took a leave of absence from his boss the very moment Betty called him on the phone. Rod rushed back home and drove Betty straight to the nearest hospital. He pranced up and down the hallway as Betty was in labor. Rod was obviously nervous, but at the same time, he just couldn’t wait to lay his eyes on his new baby girl. After what seemed like ages to him, a medic finally came out of the labor room to meet Rod with a warm smile spread across her tired face.

The medic informed Rod of Betty’s safe delivery. The medic was still speaking, but Rod was no longer listening. He promptly pushed past the medic and dashed upstairs to see his beloved wife and baby. On entering the room, Rod first made for Betty, who was smiling at him ever so tiredly. He planted a kiss on her forehead and whispered some sweet words into her ears. Then Rod quickly dashed over to the baby crib nearby to behold his daughter for the very first time. Rod bent over and stared at the newborn baby girl lying somewhat asleep inside the crib, and how mesmerized he was. To Rod, the baby girl looked so beautiful, so little, so innocent, and she laid so peacefully like she hadn’t a single care in the world. The baby’s beauty and pure innocence did it for Rod.

He vowed to himself to protect this innocent bundle of joy that fate had just gifted to him and his wife. The couple named their new baby girl Sierra, and from day one, she was the apple of her parents’ eyes. Rod and Betty simply doted on Sierra. The couple tried their very best to have other kids after Sierra, but all to no avail. Sierra’s parents wished to provide her with siblings and playmates, of course, but it seemed like fate had already destined Sierra to be their only child. However, the couple went out of their way to make sure that Sierra neither felt lonely nor lacked playmates.

They were her playmates, her siblings, and her everything. As Sierra grew, she developed quite a strong bond with her parents. She loved and cherished them. To Sierra, her parents were her everything. They were her providers, her protector, and her guardians. Rod and Betty spoiled Sierra silly with love and care. The couple were not all that wealthy; Rod and Betty were just a hardworking and comfortable couple. But they made sure that Sierra never lacked anything.

Sierra, on her part, made her parents proud with her good grades in school. She was such a brilliant child and was always top of her classes. Sierra sliced through school like a hot knife through butter. Rod and Betty rewarded Sierra’s good grades with the shopping spree of her choices. The family also went on vacations whenever the opportunity called for it. For Sierra’s 10th birthday, her parents surprised her with a safari trip to Africa. Sierra was beyond herself with happiness. She had always been obsessed with wild animals, especially elephants, hippos, rhinos, and giraffes since childhood.

So Sierra just couldn’t wait to see all those animals up close. The family had such a wonderful time in Africa during the 5-day safari trip. It was undoubtedly Sierra’s most memorable vacation experience. The Broadways were just a quintessential small happy family. Rod and Betty were still so much in love with each other. They had an extremely brilliant daughter, Sierra, who was doing amply well in school and who was a delight to be around.

The bond between daughter and parents was a very close and rare one, the sort of bond that every responsible parent wishes to have with their kids. And the couple were financially comfortable; the family was living largely fine until tragedy struck.

It happened one late winter night. Rod, who was quite dedicated to his police job, was on a lone patrol around the streets that night when he received a call on his police radio. The call directed him to rush over to a nearby house from which an emergency call had just come in. As the closest cop on the patrol to the house, Rod promptly turned his patrol car around and sped to the house. As a first responder, once the exact address was communicated to him, Rod’s plan was to do everything within his power to help save the occupants of the house who were obviously in some sort of danger while he waited for backup to arrive.

Barely 5 minutes later, Rod pulled up his patrol car a few distances away from the house. Then he stepped out of the car, pulled out his pistol gun from his holster, and carefully approached the house from the sides. The house was totally dark and eerily silent too. As he was stealthily approaching the house, Rod heard some noises, then an unmistakable woman screamed for help. The screams got Rod with his gun pointed, running to the house.

Rod suddenly heard some footsteps when he stepped inside the house. “Who’s there?” Rod screamed as he leveled his gun to what he assumed were the silhouettes of two men. Instead of a reply, three shots rang out in quick succession. One of the shots hit Rod right on the chest, another one in the abdomen. Rod immediately collapsed to the floor and called into his radio, “Shots fired, I’m hit,” and those were his very last words.

A team of five cops in a police car arrived at the house as backup barely 3 minutes later. They stormed the house, but it was too late. The armed robbers had escaped. The cops found Rod sprawled on the floor in a pool of blood, writhing in pain. Inside the house, an ambulance was immediately called for, and Rod was rushed to the hospital.

Upstairs, the cops found the woman who had made the emergency call huddled together with her two little daughters, all looking shellshocked. Rod was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. Betty almost collapsed with shock the moment she received the news of her beloved husband’s death. She flung away the telephone and burst into tears. The then 13-year-old Sierra didn’t fare better either. She came home back from school the following afternoon and stumbled upon her mom crying. Sierra didn’t need a survey to tell her what had just happened; she clearly got the message at once and joined her mom in crying.

Both mom and daughter cried together and consoled each other for what seemed like ages. Rod was given a befitting state burial by the city’s Police Department. His body lay in state inside the city hall for 3 days prior to his funeral. Thousands of the city folk solemnly marched past the body to pay their last respects. On the day of his funeral, Rod’s coffin was transported in an open hearse from the city hall to the local church. Thousands of people lined the roads, cheering and throwing flowers at the hearse as it slowly made its way to the church. Preceding the hearse were the members of the city’s police band who played and trumpeted all the way to the church.

The funeral procession was truly a spectacle. The city mayor, Mr. Simson, read the final eulogy during the funeral. Mr. Simson eulogized Rod as a legendary cop and hero who was willing to lay down his life to save others. The mayor even charged all the officers present to take inspiration from Rod’s exemplary life and bravado. Rod was finally buried with full military honors. Betty and Sierra were left to cope with the loss of their beloved husband and father.

After the burial, the city’s police department paid out a whopping sum to Rod’s family as a financial compensation for his death in the line of duty. But no amount of money could compensate Betty and Sierra for Rod’s death. He was such a loving and caring husband and father, the very best husband or father anyone could wish for. Even Rod’s colleagues in the police department still fondly remembered him as a father that did everything for his family.

To this day, Rod was Betty’s first and only love, and coping without him was so tough for her, to say the least. She always cried herself to sleep each night for the first few months. But time, they say, heals, and with time, Betty vowed to get a hold of herself and be strong for her beloved daughter, Sierra. On her part, Sierra also vowed to make her late father proud by graduating from high school with the very best grades.

The years flew by, and four years after Rod’s death, Sierra finally graduated from high school with excellent grades. For her last high school prom, which she knew would have been a quite special day for her late father, Sierra decided to visit Rod’s grave with her prom date, Brock. Few days to the prom night, Sierra had told Brock about her intentions to take a few pictures with him and a framed picture of her late father by his grave site. To Sierra’s sheer joy and fulfillment, Brock had no qualms whatsoever about her intentions.

On the late afternoon of the prom night, Sierra was immaculately dressed in a long beautiful gown of a blue hue color. She was also clad in sparkly silver sneakers. Sierra then excitedly but nervously waited for Brock. She didn’t have to wait long because Brock, smiling from ear to ear, soon arrived, dressed for the kill with a tie and bow tie to match. Sierra was clearly happy and relieved to see her handsome prom date, and together the youngsters left for Rod’s grave and Crown Hill Cemetery in Brock’s car. But when the duo got to the grave site, they received the shock of their lives.

Lying by both sides of the grave were dozens of Rod’s former colleagues in police uniforms, waiting for the youngsters. Sierra and Brock were both initially stunned to see the officers, but the atmosphere around the grave site soon turned to a hearty, laughter-filled one. It happened that Brock’s mom, who was a captain at the Marian County Sheriff’s Office, had found out about the youngsters’ plans.

So she went to the Indianapolis Metro Police Department or IMPD and kindly asked the officers if they would spare some time out of their busy schedule to surprise Sierra and her son at the cemetery. The officers, some of whom were Rod’s colleagues, immediately and wholeheartedly agreed, and that was exactly what dozens of them turned out at Rod’s grave site that late summer afternoon to do.

However, it was not only the IMPD officers who showed up at Rod’s grave. Some officers from Maran County Sheriff’s Office, Butler University Police Department, Speedway Police Department, and Clermont Police Department all showed up at the grave site to surprise the young couple and to wish them a happy prom. Sierra and Brock were so deeply touched by the officers’ kind gestures that they both went around hugging the officers one after the other.

Then it was time for the memorable group pictures with the youngsters and the officers. In one of the pictures, the IMPD police chief himself, Brian Rhods, could clearly be seen beside the smiling Sierra, cradling a framed picture of her beloved late father. In the other pictures, the smiling young prom dates were surrounded by dozens of police officers and sheriff’s deputies.

Then, just as the youngsters were about to take their leave, one of the officers called out to Brock and added a little reminder to him to the general laughter of the other officers, “Our beloved fallen brother would say, ‘Have Sierra home before 11:00 p.m., sir.'” Brock clearly got the message, and as he turned, he smiled back and nodded an affirmation at the officer that had made the call to him.

It was such a touching graveside encounter for Sierra, Brock, and all the dozens of officers involved. There were a lot of laughs, some tears, but most importantly, there was love. The city’s Police Department wrote in a Facebook post, “Sierra, we know your father is smiling from Heaven. Know that your blue line family would always be here for you.” The post concluded with the message to Sierra, “Your beloved father and our brother and colleague, Rod, may be gone, but you still have us forever, and the memories of that most unexpected and eventful graveside encounter will undoubtedly linger on inside Sierra’s heart forever.”

What did you find most shocking about this story?