Bus Driver Takes Time To Braid Young Girl's Hair Each Day After Her Mom Passed Away

Jun 24, 2021 by apost team

Losing a parent is hard at any age, but especially when you're still a child. The situation can feel even more challenging when you lose your mother because of how much you have to rely on her to help with life at that age. Isabella Pieri was nine when her mother passed away from a rare illness in 2016. After her mother's passing, she was strong in the face of adversity but still needed help with one thing: braiding her hair. 

Isabella's father, Phillip Pieri, did his best to help his daughter with styling her hair. However, he just didn't know how and ended up giving Isabella a crew cut to get rid of her long, tangled locks. The family is from American Fork, Utah, and luckily there are some pretty great bus drivers in that area. Tracy Dean is a bus driver for the Alpine School District and she makes a point to treat every child as if they were her own. 

A couple of years after her mother's passing, at age 11, Isabella saw Dean braiding another student's hair and she worked up the courage to ask the bus driver to style her hair as well. Dean said "Of course," and it became a daily routine for Isabella to get her hair braided every morning before school. 

This gave the young girl a lot of confidence and helped ease some of the hardship of losing her mom. Dean even taught Isabella how to brush and take care of her hair herself so she doesn't have to get any more crew cuts. Phillip said he was grateful to Dean for making his daughter look like a princess.

Dean has always had an open heart for the children she drives to school. She told KSL TV, "You can't be shy, you've got to talk to them. You treat them like your own kids, you know." 

The bus driver continued, "Seven years ago, I found out I had breast cancer, and that's one of the things that went through my head — who is going to take care of my little ones? Not that my husband couldn't do it, but you know, that's what mom's do. They do their kids' hair."

Dean and her kindness have filled a role in Isabella's life that she desperately needed. "It makes me feel like she's a mom pretty much to me. And it makes me excited for the next day to see what she does," Isabella shared with KSL.

Phillip was shocked by Dean's selfless nature as well as grateful. "Tracy didn't have to step up, but she stepped up to help out, I was amazed," the father said.

Isabella's family weren't the only ones who noticed a change in her behavior after she started getting her hair braided. "I just noticed her head was a little higher that morning," her teacher, Mrs. Freeze said, "and she had a little more of a step."

Dean also had the chance to speak with ABC News and made this statement:

"It's just the way my mom raised me, to be nice to everyone—people who need a little love in their life. I like to give all of the kids a chance—even the naughty kids."

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