A family draws comfort from the roadside memorial, but keeping it in place is proving a trying ordeal.
By SHANNON TAN
Published June 16, 2005
[Times photo: Ted McLaren]
Roger Lane pauses for a moment after replacing the memorial to his son, Anthony Carter, at Belcher Road near Kent Avenue on Tuesday. The family has struggled against both officials and vandals to keep the monument in place.
LARGO - They put up the wooden cross Sunday. Teresa Carter-Lane drove by three times on Monday. Seeing the memorial where her son was last alive gave her peace.
But Tuesday morning, the cross was lying on the ground. That night, the family made their way back to the spot on Belcher Road where Anthony Carter was killed 20 months ago when, for unknown reasons, his car jerked out of its lane and slammed into a truck. He was 19.
Someone had snapped the cross in two. Carter-Lane and her husband, Roger Lane, couldn't understand why. Lane set the cross back in place. He wondered, "Why are they messing with us?"
Cassie Naja, Carter's 12-year-old sister, burst into tears. She placed a ceramic dove at the foot of the cross.
All Cassie wanted was a place where she could feel everything was okay. She wouldn't go to the cemetery.
But when the Police Department removed the first cross, she had nowhere to go.
The first cross had been special. They encased it in concrete and planted flowers at its base. At Christmas, they hung lights, lit candles and sang carols. Sometimes, they'd bring a blanket and sit out there for hours.
But several residents complained it was turning into a shrine. Then the city got involved.
A deputy police chief took the cross down and delivered it to the family's Clearwater home. The city came up with a new policy allowing only standardized memorials.
The family dutifully applied for a lollipop-shaped marker, and waited. Then they were told the strip of road actually belonged to the county, which has no official policy on roadside memorials.
So Lane planted another cross in the ground. Some say he wears his stepson's death on his shoulders, where he got a tattoo of a broken heart.
The second cross was broken June 14. Lane's mother died Feb. 14; his father March 14.
Lane plans on making another cross this weekend. A sturdier one, so it can't be torn down again.
