I was so saddened to read the headline Jan. 23, “8-year-old ‘hero’ dies in fire.” I sat quietly for a while, thinking about the unselfishness and bravery of Tyler Doohan, who saved six lives and died while trying to save his grandfather in Penfield, N.Y. His uncle also died in the fire.

The thought about children came to me from Chapter 18 of Matthew in the Bible: “In heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father.”

A short time later, I happened upon a quote from an article in 2013 by a father whose 16-year-old son and another teen had saved a woman from drowning in the Stillwater River in Maine: “In an age in which the word ‘hero’ is broadcast with abandon and seemingly applied to anyone who makes it through the day, I realized that, in my son and his friend, I was face to face with the real thing — the disregarding of personal safety for the sake of another human being.”

I hope Doohan’s bravery is a reminder to us all that each of us can make a difference in the world.

Marilyn Crowley, Harrison