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ADRIENNE P. SAMUELSHundreds, many of them Hispanic, come to witness what remains of the Virgin's image in the broken windows of an office building. By nearly midnight Monday, 50 remain, and as late as 1 a.m., 20.
CLEARWATER - Rosie Reed stood in the parking lot, handing out plastic rosaries to the faithful.
The blessed beads ran out first.
The unblessed ones were gone by midnight.
Street lights buzzed. People whispered their prayers in half a dozen languages. A girl with wavy hair and blue eyes sat on a yellow curb, watching her own tears fall to the ground.
Dark clouds diffused an eerie moonlight shining on the lower half of Mary's image - the part that hadn't been broken out a day earlier by a street Goliath wielding ball bearings and, perhaps, something akin to David's slingshot.
Hundreds of believers, most of them Hispanic, came to see the Virgin's remains. They arrived after dusk and before dawn, with their children. They wanted to know who did it and how. But neither the Virgin's live video camera nor the police are omniscient, and neither offered answers.
By 11:30 Monday night, the faithful had trickled to 50, each holding their beads. By 1 a.m. Tuesday, 20. Then 15. Eight. Twelve.
Visitors ebbed and flowed. Many had not yet heard about the tragedy of the Virgin of Clearwater, a rainbow-hued apparition in the glass of an office building wedged between a do-it-yourself carwash and a car dealership on U.S. 19.
Cesar Avila, 24, of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, was stunned.
Stricken, he sank down in his chair.
"I did not know about this news." He held back tears. "This is too much of a surprise. There is no respect in this world."
Avila, like thousands of other Mexicans living in Tampa Bay and throughout Florida, felt a kinship with Clearwater's Virgin. She reminded him of home and of the "Brown Virgin," Our Lady of Guadalupe, who in 1531 appeared to an Aztec man just outside of Mexico City.
Both virgins offer Avila comfort after he gets off work at the Bamboo Club restaurant in International Plaza.
The building at 21649 U.S. 19 became famous after Dec. 17, 1996, when someone saw the likeness of the Virgin Mary in the dark glass. Half a million people flocked there to see it. Though experts say the image was caused by a chemical reaction, the Shepherds of Christ Ministries in Ohio bought the structure, calling the image a miracle.
Wearing heavy gloves, those same shepherds on Tuesday swept shards of the glass into blue, plastic buckets and slowly worked a blue tarp over the now-empty frames. The windows will be replaced, said site leader Reed, who passed out palm-sized photos of the image along with the rosaries.
She talked to every onlooker, offering comfort.
"This is holy ground," she said. "You can feel the presence of God here, and Mary."
Being broken doesn't negate the blessing, she said. The shards will be preserved in some way. And no, she's not sure if Mary will come back.
"It's in God's hands. . . We don't know God's mind, how it works."
Eddie Hernandez, 48, of New York, but originally from Cuba, heard about the incident from his mom. She saw it on TV in New York and called him.
Hernandez and his children are believers.
"You know what would be nice? Put the glass back and have her come right back," he said. "That'd be the best thing to happen."
Hernandez talked alternately in English and Spanish with Alvaro Godho, 25, of Ixmiquilpan, Mexico. Godho barely responded at first. He was still in shock.
"I believe the people who did this are of another religion," Godho said, shivering into his sweater. "I passed by here at 1 a.m. last night and it was okay."
Godho passed by again after the glass was broken. The sun beamed down on the shards, he said. White birds flew over the building. It was another miracle.
Jessica Reise hid her hands in a Ralph Lauren jacket. She talked between sniffles. It was almost 2 a.m. She had arrived at 11.
"I have a lot going on in my life right now, and I come here so I can clear my mind, and it keeps me from doing other things," she said.
Joanne Blake of Cleveland drove up and parked. Blake and friend Doug Holmes had flown down to see the Virgin. They took a picture with the apparition.
They understood why someone broke the windows.
"It's not surprising because this is the kind of world we live in," she said. "Look what happened with Jesus. Beautiful things become targets because they are good."
The spirit isn't dead, said Reed, with the rosaries. Nightly prayers still begin at 6:20, the ground is still holy and the gift shop is still open.
Though Mary might be gone, her son remains a presence on the glass, she said.
"We still have Jesus on the window," Reed said, defiantly. "He's on the bottom middle and bottom left panels. His eyes are at the top. You can see them at night."
- Adrienne Samuels can be reached at 445-4157 or samuels@sptimes.com
TO HELPClearwater police ask anyone with information about the destruction of glass that many believe bore the image of the Virgin Mary to call them at 562-4422. Ralph Napolitano, a seasonal Largo resident and a retired New York City police officer, said he would pay a $1,000 reward to anyone who provided police information that leads to the arrest and conviction of whoever was responsible for the vandalism.