Texas cop who had to tell a teenager his parents died attends his graduation

Less than a week before his high school graduation, the parents of a teenager from Orange, Texas, were killed by a drunk driver.

Officer Eric Ellison of the Orange Police Department was one of the responding officers to the crash on May 24 and given the task of breaking the news to the couple’s family and found 18-year-old Kazzie Portie, the couple’s youngest child of five, at home alone, according to BuzzFeed News.

Portie was distraught that his parents, Riley and Emily, would not be there as he crossed the stage at his upcoming graduation. Officer Ellison told the teen he would be there instead.

“You are going to walk. And your folks are going to have a front row seat in heaven watching you,” Ellison told CBS. “And I’m going to be there.”

On May 30, Officer Ellison made good on his promise when he not only attended the ceremony at Little Cypress-Mauriceville High School, but was onstage to hug Portie after he received his diploma.

The entire stadium gave the duo a standing ovation. Photos of the touching moment have since been shared widely on social media.

“I just walked up on the stage, and he looked at me and I looked at him, and we both cried out, and that’s OK,” Ellison said. “It was really rough on the kid, rough on the rest of the Portie family. Sometimes life isn’t fair, but you just have to go on.”

Portie told BuzzFeed he appreciated that Ellison “actually showed a genuine care for me and my family’s situation instead of us just being another ‘case.'”

A GoFundMe page has been setup to help raise money for Portie and his family.