A woman mourning the loss of her father earlier this year found herself transported back to happier times by the most unexpected of discoveries.
It has been a year of extreme highs and lows for Delayna Stover from Tipton, Missouri, and her two siblings Emma Barnes and Brock Battles.
On January 23, Stover gave birth to a baby girl. On February 5, her father, Rodney Battles was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. By that point the disease had already spread to his lungs and bones. He passed away on March 12, aged just 49.
Stover told Newsweek she was “extremely close” to her dad. “His house is just a block away from mine. He hosted a family dinner night every Monday night with my siblings and I,” she said.
“He was down to do whatever whenever and always trying new things. He was very adventurous and always traveling.”
When her father was hospitalized following his diagnosis, Stover was by his side. “I was at the hospital with my newborn every single day for 6 weeks with him,” she said.
As a father, Battles strived to create a happy home life for his kids. One punctuated with memories of trips to the mall and family games of Monopoly and Uno. But his joyous spirit extended beyond the home.
“He just started a festival in our hometown three years ago called ‘Septemberfest,'” Stover said. “It’s a big festival with vendors, live music, etc. It’s amazing he was able to pull off such a thing.”
The festival returned again last weekend, with the mayor of Tipton paying tribute to Battles as part of the event. A special 5K fundraiser was also held in his honor. “He touched so many lives in his short time and did so many amazing things,” Stover said.
It was Battles’ touch that led Stover to an emotional realization while cleaning her house. Losing a parent at any age is a traumatic and often life-altering event. Losing one to cancer can prove especially difficult to process.
In 2024, a survey conducted as part of a study published in the journal Palliative and Supportive Care found 32.7 percent of relatives who lost a family member to cancer experienced prolonged grief symptoms.
Sometimes those feelings of grief can creep up on you. That’s what happened to Stover that day, while cleaning her coffee table. Stover has so many “amazing memories” of life with her dad. Some of those are bound in the furniture she has. “My dad had me so spoiled he made most of the furniture in my house, anything I’d show him, he’d make,” Stover said.
There was something unique about that coffee table though. “I told him I wanted a coffee table so he made a super cool one with an American flag in it, he had to put epoxy over the top to make it super smooth and when he did that he accidentally fell and caught himself on the table,” Stover said.
Battles’ fall left Stover with a noticeable handprint in the epoxy on her new table. At the time, her father offered to sand it down and redo the top. She told him not to worry about it. “I am so so thankful he didn’t sand it down,” she said.
Up until recently, Stover had all but forgotten about the handprint. “Honestly before his passing I didn’t really notice it as much,” she said. But that day, as she came to clean the table, she realized he had inadvertently left a small part of him with her, a memory of the hand she held so tightly from little girl right through to his final days.
Though Stover said seeing the handprint left her with a “bittersweet feeling” she felt compelled to share the image with her siblings and then later on social media, posting a picture to TikTok under the handle @Delaynastover. It went viral, with 240,000 views and counting.
Now it’s something Stover likes to look at from time to time and remember. “I just stand there and stare at it for a little bit when it shines,” she said. “The light has to hit it just right for it to show.”
Though her father may have passed, she doesn’t have to look far for reminders of the man he was and always will be.
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