LANSING - As he steered his cruiser to a domestic violence call, Sgt. Paul Cole's 6-week-old baby must have been in the back of his mind.

The radio dispatcher said the perpetrator had a knife - a situation no father with a newborn wishes to enter - but Cole was a 19-year veteran of the Ingham County sheriff's department. A father to be sure, but when on duty, an officer first. He had a job to do - a job he would never finish.

As he rushed to the scene, Cole lost control of his car and wrapped it around a tree. Amongst the rubble: the lives of his wife Kathy and their three children - Paul, Andrew and Heather.

"There were times when I thought, 'I must be going crazy,'" Kathy Cole said of the aftermath of her husband's death 12 years ago. Her husband of 20 years was dead and their children, ranging from 6 weeks to 17, depended on her to mend their shattered lives.

To do so, Cole, of Holt, leaned on the Michigan branch of Concerns of Police Survivors. The network of Michigan families who had lost loved ones in the line of duty helped her deal with her pain.

"It was nice that you could call someone who had been through this and find out, 'It's okay, I should be feeling this, my kids should be doing that,'" she said.

Through counseling and retreats, the fellow survivors became a makeshift family, hobbled together from a common loss with a common goal - keeping the memory of the lost alive.

One way to do so, they felt, was to build a state memorial for all law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. For the past 11 years, they've been working toward that goal.

Now as chair of the Michigan Memorial Committee, Cole said the group has the land - between the Capitol and the Hall of Justice in downtown Lansing - and the site plan, which includes 21 illuminated, 8-foot-tall glass panels etched with the dead officers' names.

"It will be a one-of-a-kind," she said. "There are many memorials for slain police officers around the country, and I've seen several of them, but this is like nothing I've ever seen."

It's the $3.5 million tab that's been more difficult to come up with.

Suzie Sawyer, executive director of the national branch of Concerns of Police Survivors, has seen other state organizations struggle for years to raise money for their own memorials.

"They sell things, mugs, T-shirts, hats and come up with different ways to make money, but because the economy is so tight, it's tough," Sawyer said.

That's where Rep. Barb Byrum, D-Onondaga, comes in.

Knowing Cole's story, Byrum introduced a bill that would allow taxpayers to donate part of their refunds to the memorial fund by checking a box on their returns.

"I always think of Kathy Cole, and so I think it is important to honor the lives lost and the families who somehow had to survive," Byrum said.

A number of Byrum's fellow lawmakers agreed. Her bill unanimously passed the House with support from all corners of the state and both ends of the political spectrum.

As GOP Rep. Dan Acciavatti of Chesterfield said, "It's hard not to support a bill like this - especially since it's such a good cause. It's a simple way to contribute, and something like this seems to be supported by many residents."

Across the aisle and up north, Rep. Steven Lindberg D-Marquette also backed the bill.

"Police are public servants, out there protecting and serving us. There is risk involved in that and we will lose some officers in the line of duty. The least we can do is recognize them, and no one on either side of the aisle will have a problem with that," he said.

Byrum said, "When you're looking at legislation that's the right thing to do, you will get bipartisan support like this bill got."

The bill now moves into Novi Republican Sen. Nancy Cassis' Finance Committee, but Cassis said her committee is focused on economic legislation and isn't sure when it will take the bill up.

"We all have a sensitivity toward a memorial for dead officers," she said, "but there are so many other checkoffs at this point that they become competitive. And the priority of the Finance Committee has to be on putting people back to work."

The other charitable checkoffs on this year's tax form are military family relief, the children's trust fund and the children of veterans tuition grant fund. In the 2006 tax year, more than 88,000 taxpayers donated more than $1 million to these three funds, said Terry Stanton of the Department of Treasury.

If it's signed into law by June 1, a checkoff allowing taxpayers to donate any amount of their refund to the memorial will appear on the 2008 tax year form.

With the addition of the police memorial and other checkoffs for prostrate cancer, breast cancer, animal welfare and housing and community development, Stanton expects 7-8 checkoffs on the 2008 form.

Cole hopes to break ground for the memorial during May 2009's Police Week and complete the project by the end of the year.

"This memorial will add to the experience of visiting Lansing and the best part is that it is piece of history that people can be a part of," Cole said.