DEARBORN, Mich. (WXYZ) — Around 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, at the intersection of Cherry Hill Street and North Highland Street, Bryant Middle School student Isabela Romero stopped.
Romero gave crossing guard Jean Dawdy a Tim Hortons gift card and said, "I just wanted to say thank you for the whole year."
The 13-year-old's act of kindness reflects the gratitude of the Dearborn community.
For 41 years Jean Dawdy has dedicated herself to guarding the city's crosswalks by the elementary and middle school. In 1982 Dawdy first picked up her stop sign as a way to help pay for her son's graduation. Then, she never left.
"She’s just been like here this whole year, in the rain and cold, and everything," said Romero.
Nabi Lahooti, a parent in the neighborhood said, "I have lived around here for 34 years, I see her all the time!"
"I just stuck with it through snow and ice and rainstorms," said Dawdy.
In the thousands of hours Dawdy's spent on Cherry Hill she says she's saved two children's lives.
"The kid started to dart out to get his ball, but traffic was coming, so I luckily was close and I grabbed him," explained Dawdy about one of the children. "His grandfather said, 'Oh my gosh, she just saved your life.'"
Dawdy recalled another instance in the dead of winter where a little girl on the crosswalk was crying because her hands were cold, so Dawdy gave her her own mittens.
"At the end of the school year she told me they were moving to Alaska and that she would never forget me," said Dawdy.
Dawdy has been in the community so long that one resident Louis Ali said he's been joking with her for six years, 'When are you gonna retire, Jean?"
Now she finally is.
Wednesday, the day before Dawdy's last shift, her kids surprised her with a pink sign that said, in part, "Happy Retirement. Give a honk."
Cars passing by did just that.
Throughout the decades Dawdy tells us society has changed before her eyes on the crosswalk.
Kids have become parents, strangers have become friends.
As she lays down her stop sign one last time, she knows she's done her best to protect them all.
"When you come across a crossing guard, be aware that it only takes 45 seconds for those kids to cross," said Dawdy. "Because I counted it out, and have patience for that."
"Nobody can replace what you did," said Lahooti to Dawdy.
