Survivor Story of Garrett Garton
The FEDforum is brought to you by WAEPA, the life insurance choice of over 46,000 Feds and their families.
The prompt for this round of the FEDforum is: What is a day in the life for a member of your organization? This week, hear from Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.). This article was written by Garrett Garton, surviving child of Hawthorne Police Officer Andrew Garton, End of Watch (EOW) 5/26/2011,
In this round of the FEDForum, Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.) would like to share Garrett Garton’s story. Garrett was just 12 years old at the time of his father’s death. Here are his own words.
My father, Andrew Garton, was a Police Officer for the Hawthorne Police Department.
I love him too much to not share with others everything I hold deep and dear in my heart for him, and because of him.
Like me, he had a lot of love in his heart and that’s why he always volunteered for Honor Guard events to help honor fellow officers who laid down their lives for this great nation. He loved doing it so much that it hurt him going to all of these officers’ funerals, because he felt the pain for their families. It was during one of these services that my dad was killed in a motorcycle accident while providing a funeral escort.
I’m not angry, nor bitter anymore. I’ve learned to accept what has happened. I’ve learned to embrace and love the choices my father made. I’ve thought about it more than a million times and it’s one of those things where if he hadn’t been killed, then what if it had been the next week, or the week after that, or the week after that?
I’ve learned that there are things only God deserves to know, and that I have to be at peace with that.
It’s been almost 10 years since my father was killed. That’s a pretty long time; an entire decade. Yet while I write these heartfelt words to you, I have endless tears streaming down my face. Time hasn’t healed me. Everyone grieves differently, everyone learns how to move on differently; and by move on, I mean try to get their life as close to normal as they can after losing their loved one.
The C.O.P.S. organization is the best thing to happen to me since my dad was killed. Concerns of Police Survivors has brought me together with some of the nicest, fun, most loving and wholesome beautiful people I know.
It’s inspirational. I see everyone else doing it so that means that I can too. That’s one of the biggest things C.O.P.S. Kids Camp has helped me with. Being around other survivors has shown me that, despite everything I’m faced with, I can still go on and prosper.
My last note is, I really look forward to spending the rest of my life in the C.O.P.S. programs. Going to see everyone and see what they’ve been up to and how they’re doing. I have plans to volunteer and mentor at the younger camps to help give back to what the programs have given me.
For survivors, grief never goes away. It just gets a little easier, day by day.
This column from Concerns of Police Survivors (C.O.P.S.) is part of the FEDforum, an initiative to unite voices across the federal community. The FEDforum is a space for federal employee groups to share their organizations’ initiatives and activities with the FEDagent audience.
Be sure to subscribe to FEDagent so you never miss an update!
More coverage for less. WAEPA offers Group Term Life Insurance exclusively to Civilian Federal Employees at exclusive rates. Visit WAEPA.org to calculate your coverage.