Young hero offers reminder there’s enough love for all

His face is healing in a recent photo I saw of the boy who saved his sister last month from the German Shepherd attack. The family says from the minute she was born he held a big brother bond with her. Three years older he has stuck close — and that’s just where he was when he and his almost-4-year-old sister went into a friend’s backyard to play. Only to have a “mean” dog go after them.

Bridger had been attending Brazilian jiu jitsu classes with his dad and older brother. Most everybody there was bigger than he was — so he faced off with opponents who outsized him all the time — though it’s reasonable to assume they weren’t out to destroy him.

When the dog charged them Bridger said, “I stepped to the side, in front of my sister so that the dog wouldn’t get her. I kept moving, so it couldn’t get past.”

The dog latched onto his cheek as he yelled for his sister to run. When it let go he dashed to her, grabbed her hand, and got her to a safety. The dog’s owner restrained the shepherd and applied pressure to Bridger’s wounds until emergency help arrived.

In the hospital recovering from ninety stitches to his face and head his dad asked him, “Why did you step in front of the dog?”

This six-year-old big brother answered, “If someone had to die, I thought it should be me.”

You’d think Bridger’s parents would be furious at the dog and its owners. They aren’t. They had this to say: “They are really great people. We feel no resentment at all. If anything there’s only been an increase of love between our families as a result of this incident.”

All sorts of movie super heroes and celebrities checked in with Bridger. My favorite quote, “You can measure height but you can’t measure heart.”

There’s a lot of ugly stuff happening around us. The news is replete with stories of hate and destruction. The mind rises up in fury or drops in desolation.

Then along comes Bridger and his family. A backyard in Cheyenne, Wyoming. A 6-year-old hero. Love to go around. And while it doesn’t cure the ugly stuff it injects a much needed dose of feel-good-about-life.