5 reasons why Chicago Fire will miss Gabriela Dawson

5.  She’s been a great mother figure

We discussed this on Mother’s Day, but there aren’t a lot of mothers we actually get to see in the One Chicago fandom. Even less when you count those we get to see doing parenting on a regular basis—and Gabriela Dawson was one of them.

Being a mother was part of Dawson’s story from relatively early on in Chicago Fire history. She and future husband Matthew Casey (Jesse Spencer) were expecting a child a few seasons ago, only for Dawson to suffer a heartbreaking miscarriage.

Dawson went on to fill the parenting void in her life with a pair of surrogate children: her foster son Louie, whom she decided to return to his biological family in Chicago Fire season 4, and this season it was the troubled teenager Bria (recurring guest star Quinn Cooke).

After sending Bria off to her high school prom, Dawson told Casey she wanted to try for another baby—only to discover in the Chicago Fire season finale that she had an aneurysm that could kill her if she became pregnant. Even so, she still insisted on trying, because that’s how much she’s wanted to be a mom.

With Monica Raymund’s exit, we’re not going to get to see the much-hoped-for Dawsey baby, but even though she didn’t have a child of her own on the show, Dawson still did an awful lot of being a mom. Whether it was with Louie, Bria or even trying to take care of her own father, she was as much a parent as anyone and she was incredibly devoted.

That’s why we wished so hard for that baby—because Dawson was an awesome mom and with her being gone, that’s one less mother being represented in the One Chicago universe.