LITTLE ROCK, Ark.(KTHV)- At THV we love a story with a happy ending and this story about Little Rock Police Officers helping locate an elderly man and taking him to buy flowers for his wife got our attention.
Mel and Doris Amrine have been through a lot together in their 59 years of marriage. Both in their 80s, and Mel now suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the couple still know how to show their affection for one another says Doris Amrine.
"It was a real walk for him and he's not in the best of health being 83."
Saturday morning, panic set in when Doris realized her husband was missing. Family, neighbors and police began searching the area around their west Little Rock home. Nearly an hour later officers spotted Mel Amrine at a shopping center at Markham and Bowman.
His wife, Doris wandered how he navigated his way there.
"So, I thought how did he get there? But, he told me he walked, he walked up there."
Before it was all said and done Mel's wife Doris said her husband had walked 2 miles up a very steep hill just to get her Mother's Day flowers.
"He comes up the steps, the police men behind him and he's holding these flowers up the steps and I then saw what his heart wanted. He wanted to get me some flowers for Mother's Day."
Officers told Mrs. Amrine when they learned why her husband set out alone they felt the need to help him finish that task. So, while driving Amrine home officers made a stop at Kroger where he picked out a dozen white roses. A simple act of kindness, that meant the world to Doris Amrine.
"I saw another side of a policemen. That he's human like I am. He has feeling, he has emotions, he has compassion and that's what I saw in the whole act of getting him back here."
It was later revealed that Mr. Amrine had only 13 dollars with him to buy that bouquet of roses. Little Rock Police Officer Troy Dillard took care of the rest without Mr. Amrine knowing.