Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 7, 1994 TAG: 9411080041
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TOMMY TOMLINSON KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE: BUFFALO, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
The people brought presents for Michael and Alex.
They brought ribbons and flowers and dolls and balloons, and placed them all over and around the closed white coffin where Michael and Alex Smith lay inside.
There were so many flowers, they spilled onto other graves there at the cemetery at Bogansville United Methodist Church. There were dozens and dozens more wreaths, but there wasn't space enough to bring them all.
People left little messages on the flowers:
``In safe hands.''
``Precious little ones.''
``Michael, rest with the angels. Alex, rest with the angels.''
On Sunday, the people of Union County buried Michael Smith, who was 3, and Alex Smith, who was 14 months old.
Their mother, Susan Smith, is charged with murder in the deaths of the two boys. Police say she pushed her car down a boat ramp into John D. Long Lake with the two boys strapped inside.
Hundreds of people showed up for the funeral at Buffalo United Methodist Church. Even more showed up for the burial at the Bogansville church.
The services were short.
There wasn't much anyone could say.
``There have been those that come to you and say `We understand, we know how you feel,''' the Rev. Mark Long, pastor of the Buffalo church, said to the boys' family. ``They don't.''
The family filled nearly half the 350 seats at the funeral. David Smith, the boys' father, wept and leaned on family members on the way to the front pew, just a few feet away from the coffin.
All through the church, babies cried.
Other people - friends, church members, visitors - filled the other seats two hours before the funeral.
``It's still hard to believe that this is how it ended up,'' said Annabelle Mathis of Union. ``I kept praying and praying. I know other people did, too.''
People who didn't have a seat came in two or three at a time, just to spend a moment or two.
Some people wore pale blue ribbons. Others wore pictures of Michael and Alex.
Four ministers spoke at the funeral. They said God had a reason, though they weren't sure what it was.
``Just because you have gone through the deep waters ... does not mean God does not care,'' said the Rev. Joe Bridges, interim pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church. ``Sometimes God takes the most precious jewels in life, only to give them back to us in eternity.''
Some held back their tears all through the service. But then, at the end, two men came up and wheeled the coffin back up the aisle and out to the hearse.
The sobbing shook the church.
Outside waited the hundreds of people. They stood and watched the family get into cars and turn the headlights on and head to the cemetery.
The cars backed up all the way along state Highway 215. Some people got out a mile from the cemetery and walked the rest of the way.
Mourners came up to the coffin slowly, touching it, leaving gifts behind. The tears started fresh.
``The whole country fell in love with these boys,'' said Evelyn Holcomb of Chester.
For hours the people brought Michael and Alex their last presents, some taking pictures, some just watching quietly.
Finally the crowd thinned out, and men came to fold up the chairs and take away the flowers. The coffin sat on two straps inside a metal frame.
A worker turned a crank and the straps loosened and the coffin lowered.
For nine days Michael and Alex lay underwater.
Now it came time to lay them in the earth.
by CNB