The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Boy writes heartfelt thanks to RCMP
AMHERST — In the days following the shootings in central and northern Nova Scotia, an Amherst area boy sat down to write a thank you to police officers.
It was an emotional letter for eight-year-old Rylin Adams to write and one that included a lot of tears as well as gratitude. It's a letter that has brought accolades and messages of thanks from RCMP officers and police across the country.
“I'm amazed at the response,” Rylin's mother, Lindsay, said. “I never expected it to go as far or be as far-reaching as it was. It's just amazing.”
Early on the morning of April 19, Adams' children were out playing on their bicycles near their Truemanville home when she heard the news of the shooter on the loose and decided to bring the children into the house for safety reasons.
“Not knowing where he was and knowing we live on a highway, I went outside and told them they had to come in,” she said. “I didn't really want to elaborate on what was happening. I told them there was a man who was shooting and the RCMP don't know where he is.”
Later, when they heard the shooter had been seen in the Milford area, she decided to let them go out and play, but Rylin hung back because he knew something was wrong.
“From when he was very young, he’s always been very concerned when things are happening to other people. He’s very perceptive and he asked if everything was OK. He wanted to know what was happening, so I told him a bad man had hurt some people really bad, including an RCMP officer,” she said. “He has always been very empathetic and very sensitive and that’s not a bad thing. When he found out Const. Heidi (Stevenson) had died, he asked how many children she had and how old are they. He was so upset because those kids don’t have their mom any more.”
In the days that followed, she sat down with him as he continued his schoolwork. One of his assignments was to write a letter to someone. He could have chosen a family member, relative, friend or someone famous.
He chose to write a thank you letter to the police.
“My heart is broken because of what happened to your fellow RCMP members, and all of the victims of the incident over the weekend,” the Grade 3 student at Cumberland North wrote in his letter dated April 21. “It can be a scary world sometimes and I get scared and I bet you get scared too but you still help us even when you could be scared and that makes you brave. Thank you for everything you do and sacrifice to make this sometimes scary world feel more safe for us.”
Adams said the words were all her son’s and she was doing her best not to cry as he was putting the pencil to paper. She could tell he was also trying not to cry while writing, but in the end she saw tears coming from his eyes, streaming down his face and dripping onto the paper — shown as little dots or pinpricks.
“He was writing and crying, the tears were coming down off of his face. I asked him what’s wrong and he said it’s so sad the RCMP officer doesn’t have her mom and that she was doing her best,” she said. “It was making me cry.”
She made copies of the letter and through a friend was able to get it into the hands of an RCMP officer in Amherst.
“I put it on Facebook and people started sharing it. He got tons of messages from police officers across the country, including some who worked with her (Const. Stevenson). They asked for copies of it and they sent pictures of them at their detachment with the letter printed out,” she said. “There was also a councillor from Colchester County who is a retired RCMP officer who reached out to him.”
Cpl. Jennifer Clarke, public information officer for the Nova Scotia RCMP, is amazed at the empathy shown by the eight-year-old.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this level of empathy from someone so young,” she said.
“It’s heartbreaking for us to know that a child is aware of such violence and tragedy happening so close to home, but also brings such a sense of gratitude for the world this young boy lives in. The fact that he can find courage and share his courage with us lets us know that there is a lot of good in this world despite the incidents of April 18 and 19. We have incredible respect for the family and community who are raising him.”