I've heard it said that we call a woman who has lost her spouse a widow, or a child who has lost his parents an orphan. But there is no such word to label parents who have lost a child. That's because grief and tragedy of losing one's son or daughter is indescribable; there literally are no words for it.
For one family in Alabama, sadly, that grief and tragedy is all too real.
Kimber Mills was 18 years old. Last weekend, she went to a party where 27-year-old Steven Tyler Whitehead shot her following a fight. Mills was hit in the head and leg.
Mills and Whitehead did not know each other.
Unfortunately, Mills' injuries were too severe, and her family made the decision to remove her life support and donate her organs.
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Hundreds of people, many of them high school students, lined the hallway at the Alabama hospital that cared for Mills, paying their last respects to the young woman on an Honor Walk.
NEW: Hundreds of high school students line the hallways of an Alabama hospital to say goodbye to their classmate as she heads into surgery to become an organ donor.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 22, 2025
18-year-old Kimber Mills was shot at a party over the weekend.
Mills was shot in the leg and head, allegedly by… pic.twitter.com/HcpAgc5Fcl
The family of 18-year-old Cleveland High School cheerleader Kimber Mills said their final goodbyes as she prepared to give the gift of life to others.
Mills, who was shot in Jefferson County over the weekend, will save several lives through organ donation. Her family says this is what she wanted.
Her sister shared that Kimber’s heart and lungs have already been matched with recipients. Earlier Tuesday evening, hospital staff joined family and friends for an Honor Walk - a ceremony where medical workers line the hallway to honor a patient before the organ donation process begins.
Making the decision to withdraw life support is not easy. I've done it; there are days when self-doubt creeps in, and it wasn't my child's life that ended. And there have been a lot of concerns about organ donation in recent months, concerns that have driven me to remove my name from Wisconsin's donor registry.
It seems Mills' family had no such concerns, and they chose to honor Kimber's wishes to give others a chance at life, even though her life ended far too soon. So we cannot, should not, judge them.
As we've seen from the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination, there is no one right answer to how we grieve, and we can tell a lot about a person by how they react in the face of death. The Mills family, and everyone in that hospital, showed us how it's done.
