In the wake of a sudden loss, communities often rally around what endures: love, memory, and the small rituals that help children understand a world that has changed. This is the story of a Columbus family whose center was shattered, and the many hands—neighbors, relatives, mentors—now holding up the parts. It’s told with a gentle focus on what the children can carry forward: warmth, laughter, and the threads of routine woven by parents who cherished them. Here’s a careful, compassionate rendering of how a light continues, even when its original candles are gone.
They had a way of making ordinary days feel like tiny holidays. In the Tepe home—on a quiet street where porch lights flicked on in early winter evenings—mornings were measured by cereal bowls and good-natured debates about socks that matched and socks that didn’t. Spencer would tap the thermostat and say he could live on coffee alone; Monique would roll her eyes and remind him he had patients to see, smiles to fix, and lunch to eat. Emilia, four and adamant, would state her outfit with the muscular certainty of a child who believes in color, while Beckham, round-cheeked and just newly a year old, discovered the gravitational magic of spoons.
It wasn’t a house of grand gestures. It was a house of small ones. Spencer wedging a princess dress form in the hallway so Emilia could see it bloom on Christmas morning; Monique narrating the world as if it were a story written fresh each day, her voice turning traffic lights and bakery counters into characters with arcs and reasons. The dog padded after them, content to understand the family’s schedule by sound: the latch of the back door, the soft scratch of drawers, the distinct cadence of Monique’s laugh.
Neighbors had their own rituals: wave when they pass, shovel when it snows, ask how the kids are doing and wait for the long answer rather than the short one. On weekends, the Tepe porch was a polite parade—packages set on the step, shoes left by the mat, pink chalk maps scrawled over the concrete, winding routes to destinations called “castle,” “laundry mountain,” “grandma’s house,” and “dentist land.”
When the news spread—first through worried calls, then through halting texts, then through the kind of stunned silence that takes root in a neighborhood—people reached for what they knew. They made lasagnas and casseroles. They brought soft blankets and quiet toys. They spoke in low voices and remembered to smile when they were near the children. In the weeks that followed, the house became a place where grief sat at the table without ceremony. No one asked it to leave. They just made room for it beside the crayons.
There is no guidebook for how to talk to a four-year-old about absence. There are shelves of psychology and stacks of feelings charts, and they help, but the moment itself is always a living structure—built from tone, timing, and the child’s own vocabulary. The family who gathered around Emilia did what careful people do: they spoke with love and clarity, stayed honest without weighing words down, and adjusted when the room’s air shifted.
They listened first. Emilia knew things, not as facts but as shapes—the shape of routines diverted, the shape of a house quieter than it used to be. She asked questions in bursts and then forgotten notes; she asked no questions at all when her throat felt tight. The grown-ups took turns becoming translators for the abstract: explaining the kind of goodbye that isn’t forever in memory, but is forever in presence; explaining that love is portable, that it moves with you, that it can be stored in pockets and pulled out when nights are heavy.
On a late afternoon, after a day of visits and phone calls, Emilia drew a picture nobody wanted to edit. Two tall figures—her mommy and daddy—and a bright sun stretched above them. She shaded the sun with fierce strokes, as if insisting on its attendance. In another corner, two small figures stood—herself, with impossible hair, and her baby brother, simplified into roundness and lines. In crayon worlds, limitations are virtues; perspective is voluntary. Emilia gave the sun more power than the roof. It was a child’s vote of confidence.
A relative told her what many would feel for years: “You shine with them.” It was said gently, with a smile that dared not wobble, and Emilia tilted her head as if measuring the phrase’s weight. Shine is a simple verb, but in practice it’s an inheritance. Children shine in the ways their parents taught them: kindness built in repetitions, laughter practiced daily, courage demonstrated in small acts—apologizing, listening, asking for help, trying again after a spill.
Beckham, curious, watched. He touched things with the ceremonial intensity of toddlers: the edges of blocks, the fuzz of a stuffed bear, the clean arc of a spoon’s bowl, and the dog’s patient ear. He would know his parents through the people who loved them, through pictures, through stories where they went to parks and built forts and declared home a safe word meaning you’re here, you’re loved, you belong.
Funerals are difficult because they must do two jobs at once: release and retain. The joint service drew a crowd large enough to feel like a town gathering, where acquaintances become family for a day and grief becomes the language everyone shares fluently. At the Schoedinger Northwest Funeral Home, the space was arranged with care—a kind of architecture of consolation. People moved through rooms, touched photographs, stood beside flowers, and considered how many lives can intersect when one couple lives generously.
You could tell Spencer’s colleagues by the way they spoke of technical things—bite planes and chairside manner—and then immediately translated into kindness. He wasn’t just good at dentistry; he was good at making a room calm. Dental suites can be scary for children. A dentist who drops his shoulders, lowers his voice, and explains instruments as if they’re friendly robots—this is a person who understands that fear is a guest who responds to hospitality.
Monique’s friends had stories that sounded like sunshine: daycare days where children learned colors through dancing; holiday crafts that made glitter an acceptable household hazard; faces lit by a teacher’s pride when shy kids raised hands. Her degree was more than certification; it was a map of how children become themselves when someone believes in their potential. At home, she taught by presence. In the neighborhood, she taught by example.
In the hallways after the service, in between the official moments, people did the quiet work communities do. They asked about practical things—what’s needed, who’s available Tuesday, whether the dog likes certain leashes—and they formed an orbit around the children that felt respectful rather than engulfing. The goal wasn’t to fill all the air in the room; it was to make sure the children always had oxygen.
Those who could not attend wrote, called, or donated. Some made notes about the week’s schedule: tutoring, pediatric appointments, school paperwork. Others formed committees without calling them that—a meal rotation, a “story share” project to gather memories, an emergency text thread for late-night questions. When people didn’t know exactly what to do, they picked something that seemed small and did it thoroughly. That is how quilts are built: one piece at a time, the pattern emerging from collective intention.
After the first wave of public attention, life becomes about the shape of days. Children need structure that feels like comfort, not confinement. So mornings start with the familiar—pajamas negotiated, breakfast offered, bag packed. There is transit, and the songs played are chosen with cheerful seriousness. A four-year-old is a DJ with convictions; playlist democracy works only when cinnamon toast is promised.
Emilia becomes an expert in small choices. Which barrettes? Which backpack zipper? Which book tonight? Someone explains bedtime as a gateway rather than a barrier—dreams are friendly weather, and you can bring your stuffed bear as a meteorologist. Beckham discovers a new verb every six days; it arrives as a grin and a gesture more than sound. He points where love goes and expects it to follow. It does.
In the quiet of mid-afternoon, after lunch, there are the routines grief permits: puzzles, drawings, blocks aligned not by architectural integrity but by narrative excitement—this one is a bridge; this one is a rocket; this one is a cat’s pedestal. The dog is consulted on all major decisions and approves them with a noble sigh. When the house grows too quiet, someone reads a story with theatrical flair; Emilia corrects them with joy when they ad-lib. Beckham hums along and decides books taste like the future.
On some evenings, the family takes walks. Winter in Columbus has a particular draft; it calls for coats that remember to cover the back, and gloves that understand play. Streetlights carve soft halos in the early darkness. Emilia points at the moon like a celebrity she won’t allow to be ignored. Beckham watches birds rewrite their routes. The dog demonstrates loyalty as a compass.
Children have a way of measuring stability not by the absence of change, but by the presence of love. The grown-ups recalibrate schedules—the pick-ups, the drop-offs, the doctor’s notes, the meals that are friendly to small hands—and thread through them stories of Spencer and Monique that feel like the opposite of a lesson. No one says, “Remember.” They say, “There was this time,” and then place joy in the room as easily as toys.
There are memories that are sharp—dates, names, the crispness of a particular morning—and there are memories that are soft like sweaters, pulled on when the heart gets chilled. Emilia receives both. She’s told about Christmas morning, the thrill of dresses crafted by a dad who understood that princesses are not an idle fancy but a form of sovereignty. She’s told about kitchen dances, where flour spilled like snow and the music did not care about tempo so much as laughter.
The stories are rooted in who Spencer and Monique were in the daily sense. Spencer’s calm and kind smile; Monique’s laughter that gathered people up. Their friends recall mentorship programs and daycare days, not as résumé lines but as evidence of a life integrated with others’ growth. That is the thing about people who invest in community: their legacy isn’t a statue; it’s a series of habits passing from hand to hand.
Some nights, Emilia asks questions that pull the room close. Why did the sky look like that on the last happy day? Where do voices go when they’re not in the house? The grown-ups offer answers that don’t pretend to be complete. They say that voices live in recordings, in stories told aloud, in the ways we speak to one another and hear familiar music across new rooms. They say skies change but people who love you invent new kinds of weather for your comfort.
Beckham receives the tenderness of unhurried time. He knows faces as reliable constellations. He knows that when he reaches, hands answer. He knows that dogs are soft and unconditionally comedic. He grows into the world the way toddlers do: with trial and error, and with applause for both.
Protecting children is often quieter than people imagine. It’s not a single dramatic act; it’s a series of consistent choices aligned with care. The family navigates practicalities—the legal process in the background, paperwork in careful stacks, schedules that must be lived one day at a time—while placing the children’s safety and emotional wellbeing at the center of every decision.
Words are chosen with responsibility. News cycles are mediated; adult conversations move to other rooms. When the children wander in, the topic changes to colors, cookies, and whether the dog knows any new tricks. A four-year-old deserves truth made gentle. A one-year-old deserves truth made steady. Neither deserves a world too small or too loud.
Madeleine and Rob, along with extended relatives, structure pillars: nightly routines, weekly playdates, the kind of calendar that makes room for spontaneity while promising reliability. Friends handle logistics like road surfaces—smooth them out, direct traffic, reduce friction. When someone offers help, it’s matched to need, not impulse. Compassion is allocated like a budget, with the generosity to overspend when necessary.
In quiet moments, there’s grief shaped like questions nobody can answer yet. Adults speak to counselors, to clergy, to one another. They create spaces where children never feel the heaviness as their burden but sense it only as someone else’s honesty. Emilia learns words like “feelings” in the way she learns days of the week—one by one, often out of order, with corrections that are kind. Beckham learns the architecture of hugs and the economics of giggles.
There is a phrase that has settled into the family’s lexicon: “They shine through her.” It started as an observation offered by a relative on a day when hope felt slim. It stuck because it was true in ways beyond metaphor. Emilia’s enthusiasm is a direct line to her parents’ joy. Her capacity to light up a room isn’t a performance; it’s a reflex learned at home where laughter was air and kindness was currency.
When she laughs, she sounds like a bridge between eras—the before and the after transforming into a now that can be survived. When she insists on a color combination nobody else would dare, she speaks fluently in the language Monique taught: creativity as a brand of courage. When she steadies herself to be kind to a friend who is sad, she practices Spencer’s art—the calm that anchors a room.
People often talk about legacy as if it’s a monument. In this family, legacy is more modest, more portable, and arguably more enduring. It’s in Emilia’s confidence to narrate the world with bright verbs. It’s in Beckham’s gentle curiosity. It’s in the dog’s steady heartbeat beside him. The house is different, but its gravity remains, shaped by rituals continued and new ones invented without apology.
The family gathers stories like lanterns. They take turns lighting one and holding it in the center of the room so everyone can see. There was the winter afternoon Spencer fixed a squeaky drawer with the triumphant grin of a man who just negotiated peace with stubborn wood. There was the summer weekend when Monique turned a backyard into a carnival with three balloons and a playlist. There were the small mercies: a sleeve straightened, a snack offered, a word softened before it met a child’s ear.
These stories are not a museum; they are part of a living practice. Children grow—ask new questions, reshape old ones, carry forward different details, forget some things and remember others. The grown-ups know that memory’s form must be flexible. There are notebooks where friends write pages addressed to the children. There are photo albums handled with the reverence of sacred texts. There are recordings that let voices sit in the room like familiar guests.
When Emilia picks which memory to hear, she chooses the ones where there’s movement—races down hallways, dance parties that require no choreography, grocery carts pulling around corners like adventure vehicles. Beckham’s choices are simple: faces, laughter, the dog’s bark made into performance art. The grown-ups honor each selection as if they are selecting tracks from an album made for healing.
Healing is often misrepresented as dramatic. More often, it is quiet: a nap that lands, a meal that tastes like home, a day that ends without the heart feeling hunted. Grace arrives in ordinary forms. A neighbor puts out trash bins without being asked. A friend texts a joke at exactly the right hour. A teacher positions a chair close enough to reassure and far enough to respect independence.
Children sense grace instinctively. Emilia cultivates it in the way she shares stickers and negotiates fairness. Beckham receives it in the way he is held. The dog recognizes it as the new cadence of footsteps he can trust. The adults practice it as a discipline—moving slower, choosing gentler words, deferring decisions when the room jitters, advancing them when the road clears.
In this redesigned household, love is not diminished by absence; it is reorganized into routes that touch every part of the day. There are prayers spoken softly, recipes repeated because flavor is memory, and games invented because play is oxygen. There is accountability and care around the details—health appointments, school notes, consistent bedtimes—and the generosity to forgive imperfection when a day gets away.
Columbus isn’t a chorus in this story so much as a hum. The city provides the infrastructure of everyday living—the grocery store that remembers the kids, the clinic that smiles when Beckham tries to climb the scale, the park where ducks become celebrities. Neighbors are not heroes for a headline; they are consistent presences who hold space. Mentors continue their work as Spencer did, honoring his spirit by practicing patience and modeling steadiness.
The city’s institutions—schools, counseling services, faith communities—extend hands without insisting on drama. They know that the quieter a help is, the more likely it will be accepted. Support arrives as appointments kept, as rides offered without a fuss, as calendars that bend just enough to fit reality’s angles. It’s in the mail carriers who wave a beat longer, in the librarians who tuck in an extra bookmark, in the baristas who understand a child’s need to name a hot chocolate something more magical.
This is how a community holds a family: not with spectacle, but with hundreds of small commitments that, together, become a net strong enough to catch the falling and soft enough not to bruise. The city makes a promise by repetition. It will be here tomorrow. And the next day. And the next
Futures for children in grief are best built from materials that are strong and flexible: consistency, kindness, and opportunity. Emilia’s days will be measured by school bells and playground negotiations; she will become a specialist in the art of explaining friendships to adults who have forgotten the rules. Beckham will move from toddling to sprinting, from babble to assertion, from pointing to argument, and each change will feed the family’s sense that time itself is a kind of balm.
They will have mentors—some official, many informal—who teach them how to solve problems without solving them for them. They will learn their parents’ stories as a source of pride, not as a locked case that cannot be touched. The family will pivot, occasionally wobble, and then correct course because life requires malleability. Love will remain a daily practice, not a memory kept in an attic.
There will be milestones that feel both celebratory and complicated: first days of school, birthdays with mixed weather, achievements that would have been posted with emojis and now are posted with tears held back. The grown-ups will navigate each with deliberate gentleness, telling the children that joy is allowed and grief is welcome and neither disqualifies the other.
As weeks turn and the year stretches into new seasons, what began as crisis becomes the long work of living with tenderness. The family is learning, as many families have before them, that hope is not a denial of pain. It is pain’s companion—a steady friend who sits beside hard days and says, “We’re still here. We can still do this.”
Emilia’s goodbye to her parents was a moment threaded in the fabric of many moments. It did not end anything; it acknowledged a reality and offered a child-sized ritual for continuing. She will say other goodbyes and many hellos, her vocabulary expanding with her height. Beckham will discover names for everything he touches, and then he will discover that some things are felt, not named, and that’s okay.
The adults will keep doing the work: protecting, providing, storytelling, laughing on purpose, crying when necessary, and modeling the kind of resilience that doesn’t pretend to be invincible. Friends will remain. Neighbors will keep showing up. The dog will keep being the dog, which is perhaps the purest form of constancy available to a household.
And in all of this, Spencer and Monique will remain—not in the way that requires doors to open on their voices, but in the way that asks children to grow in the light they left. Their legacy lives in a daughter who insists on sun in her drawings, in a son whose curiosity redefines every corner of a room, and in a family who builds a future with the patience to honor what was and the courage to love what is.
Children thrive on consistent, gentle routines infused with storytelling, play, and accessible truth.
Communities support best through practical, steady help—meals, rides, flexible calendars—without sensationalizing grief.
Memory as a living practice keeps legacy warm: stories told, photos shared, small rituals preserved, and new ones created.
Protection is everyday care: age-appropriate communication, emotional safety, and stable schedules.
Hope is carried forward as a daily habit, not a performance—visible in the children’s laughter, curiosity, and kindness.
In a quiet house in Columbus, the center has shifted, but the orbit holds. The light that Spencer and Monique cast is not extinguished; it’s diffused through the people who loved them and most of all through the children, who, by nature and by nurture, keep shining.
