This year I’d like to focus on those mothers who have mourned their fallen child or care for the children of a fallen officer.
May 15th is National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Day—set aside to recognize, honor and remember those officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice. May 13th is the Candlelight Vigil, hosted and held by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, remembering and honoring all those officers who died in the line of duty in 2021. May 8th is Mother’s Day, and I would like to talk about this confluence of days for just a few moments.
Few things can be as emotionally impactful as the loss of a child. I would think that for a mother, the loss and pain felt would be all that more severe. Yet in most years, Mother’s Day is the Sunday that starts Police Week.
The organization Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS) is certainly made up of plenty of moms—the surviving spouses and mothers of fallen officers (there are fathers in that category too, but I’m focusing on mothers for the moment). COPS supports the whole surviving family. In conjunction with the Memorial, the surviving families of those fallen officers being added to the wall each year are transported to Washington, D.C., and given places of honor and support as their loved ones are remembered. But I’ve been there and seen this several times over and I can’t help but think that the surviving spouses that have children are so busy being moms they barely get a chance to deal with their own grief. As always, the needs of their children come first and the moms make another sacrifice—their own emotional need and well-being—for the welfare of their children.
Every year I think about this: Mother’s Day, Candlelight Vigil, Law Enforcement Memorial Day. It’s an entire week wherein those mothers are almost forced to focus on their loss... continually. There are support groups, meetings, classes and more on how to manage that grief, deal with the loss, and offering information about all the organizations available to support the surviving families. None of it can replace the fallen officer and, at least in the short term, little of it can do much to heal the broken soul of the surviving wife or mother.
Every year we cover Police Week, the Candlelight Vigil, etc. Every year I feel a loss for what we haven’t done to recognize those moms. They need us. They need our support. They need recognition. They deserve everything we can give them emotionally and spiritually. This year, I want to recognize those mothers: The ones who have lost a son or daughter to a line of duty death and those who have lost a spouse to the same sacrifice.
Stay safe. We don’t want the number of them to grow.
