Staff Seargent Philip Gray knew that his daughter would miss him like crazy this year. So he came up with a way to keep her spirits up.
2020 has been a tough year for everyone. But for Rosie, it has been especially hard.
Like most kids, she has had to get by with significantly less contact with her school friends while living through the pandemic. On top of this, she’s also had to cope with the distress of her father serving overseas.
For most of the year, Rosie’s dad, Staff Seargent Philip Gray, has been on active military service in Afghanistan.
Naturally, Rosie has been worried for her dad’s safety and missed him like crazy.
But before Staff Seargent Gray left, he and his wife, Kristen Gray, worked out a way to remind Rosie that he loved her.
They knew that his deployment would be for 270 days. So they decided that he should write out 270 notes. Each day, Rosie would read a new message at lunchtime.
It took a while, but eventually, Staff Seargent Gray had written all of the notes out.
Every note was unique and reaffirmed his love for hs daughter.
Rosie had no idea that her dad was going to do this.
In fact, the first she knew about it was when she opened her lunch one day and saw the note in the lunchbox.
At first, Rosie thought that the note was a one-off. But then, every day, she kept on finding them in her lunchbox.
And she realized just how important she was to her father.
Unfortunately, Rosie would then get some bad news.
She learned that her dad would be deployed a little longer than they had expected. His deployment was being increased to 306 days instead of 270 days.
Those extra weeks, with no notes, must have been so hard on Rosie.
But eventually, the day came. On August the 8th 2020, Staff Seargent Gray returned home.
https://www.tiktok.com/@kris10grayyy/video/6870256184369237253?lang=en
And the best thing was that it was in time for Rosie’s birthday! She turned eight three days after his return.
And Rosie really loved the notes. In fact, she keeps on asking her dad to write them for her, even though he isn’t going anywhere again any time soon.
And of course, the dad is happy to keep on writing notes for his daughter.
Kristen Gray then posted about what her husband had done. She uploaded a video to TikTok showing some of the best notes.
https://www.tiktok.com/@kris10grayyy/video/6875695193832656133?referer_url=https%3A%2F%2Flittlethings.com%2F&referer_video_id=6862155575069904134
This post soon became popular on the site. To date, it has gained over 274,500 views. It also has more than 38,000 likes and 200 comments.
People have been saying things like this:
Soon, a range of news organizations wanted to find out more about Rosie and her father.
The family agreed to appear on Kelly Clarkson’s special veteran’s day show.
In the interview, Kristen revealed that Staff Seargent Gray had always been thoughtful like this. In fact, he used to leave Kristen notes when they first started dating.
Rosie also told Kelly Clarkson what her favorite notes were. She held one up to the camera that said the following:
For those who can’t work out what it says, it’s, “Always smile. It makes everyone else smile.
Of course, Staff Seargent Gray is likely to be deployed again in the future. Those times will be hard for everyone in his family. But he’ll be sure to make Rosie, Kristen and others feel loved.
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