Grieving Dad asks Reddit users to Photoshop a picture of his baby

When Nathen Staffel lost his infant daughter, Sophia, to a terminal illness, he turned to social networking site, Reddit to ask a simple favour from the online community.

Click Next to find out what fellow Reddit members did to Baby Sophia’s photo!

Daddy’s post…

"My daughter recently passed away after a long battle in the children’s hospital. Since she was in the hospital her whole life we never were able to get a photo without all her tubes. Can someone remove the tubes from this photo?"

An act of Internet kindness

Nathen explained that Sophia passed away in Cincinnati’s Children’s Hospital after suffering a hepatic hemangioma in her liver at just 6 weeks old.

The response to his post stood to proof that there is some good in this world after all.

Gallery of beautiful memories

Reddit users responded to the grieving Dad’s post by posting photoshopped, painted and drawn portraits of Baby Sophia.

Emotional support from the World Wide Web

Although Nathen loved all the photos that was submitted to the thread, he was also "emotionally taken back by all the support and personal messages from families who shared a similar experience of grief".

What Nathen loved most about the pictures…

Being able to ‘see’ his daughter without the various equipment meant a great deal to Nathen.

However, Nathen added that he still cherished Sophia’s real photo because "that’s how she was."

A note of Thanks!

To express his appreciation, Nathen posted a ‘Thank You’ note on the Reddit thread:

"This is really amazing! Everyone you have made my day! All I wanted was a nice picture. What I received was a lot of love and support from a bunch of strangers. A long (sic) with a lot of great photos, drawings and paintings. Thanks everyone!"

In loving memory of Sophia

Nathen and his wife plan to hang up a few of their favourite shots of Sophia.

Written by

Justina Goh

parentingredditphotoshopped picture of babygrieving dadcondolenceemotional support