She sits alone at the dark brown wooden table, head deep in her work.

She is holding herself up, acting like she’s fine, but underneath there’s a hole of emotion.

172 days.

172 days since her father passed away.

172 days since Rodger Kenworthy lost his battle to cancer.

172 days since her heart broke.

Aug. 9 is a day to remember. She deems it the worst day of her life. Everything seemed unreal. A dream turned into a nightmare. The impossible goodbye was here too soon.

She is aware that death is a part of life. But she says she never understood the gravity of how devastating a loss can be.

She misses the calls where they would debrief their days. She misses that she can’t get in her car and drive to see him. She misses him with every single part of her.

She hates that her mom hurts so much. She hates that she can’t talk to him.

“Oh, I hate cancer.” She says.

She wishes she could have told him “I’m sorry,” and “I love you.” She wishes that she could have told him to take more treatment. She wishes she could have done more, and told him “Thank you for being my father.”

Despite the feeling that the pain and hurt will never end, she has developed ways to cope.

On her drive home from work, she talks with him, even though he is in Heaven. She takes the things he taught her and applies them to her life. For instance, she knows to put Jesus first, and family second. She knows to let the people she loves know that she loves them.

And so Bridget Petrowsky sits down at her desk, her head filled with thoughts of love, loss, and grief, and begins her work.

Editor’s note: Photojournalism students wrote 300-word stories that emulated the feature profiles written by Brady Dennis for the St. Petersburg Times in the mid-2000s. 2022-2024 Shield co-editor in chief Alice Scott prepared a master class on Dennis’ stories for the newspaper staff, and adviser Dave Winter was so impressed with the lesson that he changed his feature profile assignment based on what Scott taught the staff about Dennis’ stories. As a result, we have a growing collection of wonderful short profiles—including this loving and lovely profile of Bridget Petrowsky and her amazing dad Rodger Kenworthy—that are well-crafted, powerful and straight from the heart.