Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, November 10, 1994                   TAG: 9411100084
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

WHERE WILL ALL THE FLOWERS GO?

Sherry Smith looks tired, old beyond her 38 years, but she was out in her shirt sleeves Wednesday, tending the flowers she has planted around her daughter's grave.

Her hands shake as she nervously snips at the remaining plants that haven't died off and been replaced by artificial ones.

Her voice quickens, the pitch rising, as she explains how, when she comes after the cemetery gates are locked, she stands at the fence where she can see the grave and tells her daughter, "Mama will be back tomorrow."

Melody Caldwell, brain-damaged in a car accident six years ago, died in a house fire last year when the motor of the hospital bed in which she spent most of her time caught fire.

Smith tends the flowers because she doesn't have Melody to tend to anymore.

"It's as if, well, we're taking care of her again."

But last week, Smith learned that this daily pleasure - the flowers, the 21st birthday card, the sun-faded picture of the once-energetic girl who lies in the earth below - might have to go.

Don Wilson, general manager of Evergreen Burial Park in Southwest Roanoke, where Melody is buried, said cemetery guidelines prohibit most of what Smith; her husband, Jerry; and her father, Tom Leffel, have done to the grave.

Wilson said he put off all summer telling Smith that the flowers couldn't stay, because he knows how important they are to her. But the cemetery's rules are designed to maintain a clean, conservative appearance. Caldwell's grave is "radically different" from the 19,500 or so others in the cemetery, Wilson says. Graves usually are allowed only a single vase of artificial flowers.

Wilson also is concerned that if he allows Smith and her family to continue their planting, others, who may not be as devoted as Smith, might want to do it, too.

This test of Sherry Smith's devotion started six years ago when Melody, then 15, piled into a car with four other teen-agers. The car crashed into a telephone pole when a tire blew. The other kids received only minor injuries, but Melody, who was sitting on the console, lost half of her right brain and 30 percent of her left when her head was thrown onto the gear shift.

In June 1993, Melody came home. The family, especially Leffel, became her nurses.

But the following October, when the motor on her hospital bed caught fire, Leffel swept up his granddaughter and carried her to within feet of safety before he was overcome by smoke and his shirt caught fire.

Melody died of smoke inhalation. Her body was found just inside the front door. Leffel was hospitalized with burns over 25 percent of his body. Few thought he would live.

Frank Roupas, who donated the plot in which Melody is buried, had been prepared to donate the one next to her for Leffel.

Now Leffel and his daughter care for Melody the only way they can.

When the dirt over the grave sank, Leffel and Jerry Smith brought in fill dirt, topsoil, grass seed and fertilizer. They planted dahlias and begonias, and Leffel made a cross of artificial flowers. The grave is an endless source of pride for Leffel.

"People just brag and marvel at it and want to know who that was that was loved so much after they were gone," Leffel said.

Sherry Smith says she understands Wilson's concerns about maintenance, and she wonders if maybe she has put out too many flowers.

Wednesday afternoon, Wilson talked with Smith and Leffel at Melody's graveside.

Before the gates closed for the day, the three had worked out a compromise.

Smith will take up the flowers in the ground, and Wilson will provide several additional vases and an easel for Melody's picture. Wilson said he had no problem with Smith and her family continuing to mow and clip around the grave.

Smith seems pleased with the compromise. She says it's better to have some flowers than none at all.

"If I had to go up there and look at just nothing," she said, "I don't think I could take it."