Coral Cemetery

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Saturday, 4:00 PM

Two jagged bolts of lightning split the drizzly afternoon sky. Twin cracks of thunder followed immediately. The bedraggled group of mourners huddling around the small grave in Jupiter, Florida flinched involuntarily. Rhonda Early released her husband’s arm and wiped the tears and rain drops from her face. She looked upward and wondered bitterly if there could be a more fitting day to bury their fourteen-month old son.

She reached for the handle of the shovel which was jabbed in a pile of sodden soil beside the grave. Tiny rivulets of rain were trickling from the heap toward the deep hole. With a groan of anguish, she scooped a small amount of wet earth and dropped it on the coffin below. Shoulders sagging, she lowered the shovel and fell against her husband’s chest. Morgan, fighting tears of his own, wrapped his arms around his beloved wife and hugged her tightly. Words were hopelessly inadequate.

“I can’t,” she muttered. “It’s so final.”

Morgan kissed her cheek. “I know,” he said quietly. “The caretaker will finish.”

Chris and Jody Crawford, Rhonda and Morgan’s best friends and the godparents of little Warren Early, the reason for the pitiful gathering at the cemetery, inched forward, shoes squishing in the saturated ground.

“Come on,” Chris urged in a cracking voice. “Let’s get out of here before we all get sick in this rotten weather.”

“You’re right,” Rhonda managed between sobs. “Let’s go back to the marina. Standing here in this downpour won’t bring Warren back to us.”

Morgan sniffled and dropped his forehead in his hand. He turned and looked back at the open grave site. “Oh, Warren,” he moaned. “You had your whole life ahead of you.”

The two couples trudged back to Chris’s car, unspeakable sorrow accompanying their every step through the summer squall and dreary, slate grey sky.