A child who lost her father has been reunited with his ashes after they were stolen from her grandmother’s doorstep.
Lia Rideb of Ephrata, Washington, is a mom to 18-year-old Isaiah and 8-year-old Mia. She had a six-year relationship with Mia’s father, Jason Lewis, but they separated when Mia was 3.
In September 2023, Mia’s father went missing. In early October, an official police report was filed, and by the end of that month, Mr. Lewis’s vehicle and remains were found.
To console her grieving daughter, Ms. Rideb ordered a memorial bear containing Mr. Lewis’s cremains from the U.K. and an urn. The package was delivered a day early, on Friday, Dec. 1, and went missing from the doorstep.
“By the time that following Monday had come around, Mia’s grandma checked the tracking of the package,” Ms. Rideb told The Epoch Times. “At that point, we knew that someone had taken the package off of her porch because we never saw it.”
On receiving a text at work about the loss of the package, Ms. Rideb was absolutely devastated and found it hard to focus.
“I thought that there was no way anybody was going to get that back ... whoever stole it had no idea of the value of what was in that package,” she said.
Ms. Rideb posted on Facebook about the loss of the package, begging the porch thief to return the precious package. Along with the plea, the mom of two included a photo of the contents of the package and a photo of Mia with her late father. The post was shared on various groups and by the local community. Five days after the package went missing, Ms. Rideb decided to check the streets to see if it had been dumped.
“I dropped Mia off at school, and I went to her grandma’s house,” she said. “Her grandma went to unlock the door at the same time I was getting out of the car, and there, on the porch, someone had returned the package. It was wrapped in a Walmart bag, tied up, and all of the contents were there. Nothing was damaged.”
Upon seeing the package, Ms. Rideb was “overflowing with gratitude” and was touched that someone chose to do the right thing. That night, she and her fiancé, William McLain, sat Mia down and gifted her the long-awaited memorial bear and also filmed her reaction.
“It was just a genuine reaction,” Ms. Rideb said. “She didn’t know that we had ordered the bear for her, it was intended to be a surprise. ... The first thing she did was just give it a hug, and it was so bittersweet, because it’s the first hug that she was able to give him since their last, and their last hug was before [her father] went missing in September.”
Mia hadn’t seen or heard from her father for months and had been crying herself to sleep because she missed him so much.
“Now she has a bear with his remains in it that she can hold at night, and she can sleep and [also] talk to if she wants,” Ms. Rideb said. “Nothing can replace a parent, but we’re hoping that it gave her some closure, and she seems to be dealing with the loss better than she was before.”
Ms. Rideb said that Mia shared a very special bond with her late father. He was “very loving and attentive,” and called her as often as he could since he lived just two hours away.
“They would go on camping trips, they’ve gone to the ocean before, and they'd go crabbing and clamming,” Ms. Rideb said. “He always took her on adventures ... always made sure to take her out to do things and have fun and teach her things that she learned about snakes and spiders and ticks, and what to look for when you’re out camping.”
Ms. Rideb has no idea who stole the package from Mia’s grandmother’s porch. There’s no evidence besides a “grainy” image from a neighbor’s camera across the street. But she is grateful that someone chose to amend their wrongdoing and then do the right thing.
“I would absolutely love people to know that there is still good out there in the world,” she said. “There are still good people out there that can be counted upon to do the right thing.”
