Heartbroken Father Receives Love from Online Strangers over Newborn Daughter's Death

Ohio father Nathan Steffel was greatly devastated by the passing of his infant daughter last week. She died after numerous complications from hepatic hemangioma, what's known as the most common type of a liver tumor that's not caused by cancer itself. 

Steffel soon turned to social media to potentially find relief, posting the news of her death on Reddit and asking for a new picture of his baby in her memory. As the baby girl was born on May 30, she spent the full six weeks of her life under intensive care at a hospital.

"My daughter recently passed away after a long battle in the children's hospital. Since she was in the hospital her whole life, we never were able to get a photo without all her tubes. Can someone remove the tubes from this photo?" Steffel wrote via Reddit.

Soon after, Steffel received an enormous response from viewers and other grieving parents who had also recently struggled with the death of a child.

Though Steffel admits that he had only hoped for one photo of his daughter, the generous outpouring from those who reached out has helped his family cope with the great loss of their daughter.

"All I wanted was a nice picture," he commented later. "What I received was a lot of love and support from a bunch of strangers."

In just three days, Steffel's post received up to 2,800 comments from over a dozen artists with new, different and uniquely beautiful renditions of Sophia. According to the New York Daily News, even one person has offered to mail Steffel a painting of his beloved little girl.