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E-mail StoryFour coffins for five people create haunting image
This story originally appeared July 17, 2003
| Thursday, Feb 15 2007 3:30 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Feb 15 2007 3:30 PM
The coffins got smaller. Large, big, medium and small. Four of them.
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Photos:
Pastor Jack Stewart, from The Church of Christ East Bakersfield gives "Words of Comfort," to the people attending the Harper funeral service. The Harper family including Earnestine Harper, left, Joanie Harper, holding her baby Marshall James Harper, Marques Juwan Harper, and Lyndsey Michelle Harper, right, seen in photos behind their caskets.
Eddie Harper, of Florida, son of Earnestine Harper gives eulogistic remarks at the Bakersfield Convention Center during the funeral for the family of five killed.
The Bakersfield Convention Center was used for the Harper funeral in Bakersfield.
Jerry Scott, Kern County Educator, and friend of Joanie Harper, seen in foreground in photo holding Marshall James, her new born son during their funeral service.
There are degrees of awful. Even if we tell ourselves that one life is equal to another, our heads say one thing. Our hearts another. Seeing four coffins for five people was a lightning bolt to the middle of the chest.
Buried Wednesday at Hillcrest Cemetery were 70-year-old Earnestine Harper, her 39-year-old daughter Joanie, and Joanie's three children, Marques, 4, Lyndsey, 2, and Marshall, 6 weeks.
Marshall was too small, too young, too innocent and too new to be buried alone. He lies next to his mother in her gleaming white coffin.
I've seen a lot of things at the Convention Center. Jimi Hendrix, "Les Miserables," "For the Love of Maggie," "The Ice Capades." Wednesday was the first funeral.
It was above all, sad. Especially with the pictures of the Harpers, blown up like giant playing cards and set on easels in front of the coffins.
Two thousand or so people filed in. Count it as a victory for racial harmony. Most were black, but there were whites, Hispanics and plenty in the "other" category.
I've never seen so many ministers. If you couldn't get a hold of yours Wednesday between 11 and 2, there was good reason. They were at the funeral, 100-deep on the stage, singing, bowing their heads and saying "Amen brother."
The singing was inspiring, the preaching even better. It made you want to buy the CD and go on the road with Earnestine's two sons -- Eddie and Robert -- both of whom are evangelical ministers in the Church of Christ.
The ministers -- and more than eight spoke -- did their painstaking best to lighten the somber mood inside the auditorium and make sense of the crime that left five people dead, three of whom were children under the age of four.
"This is not a tragedy, but a victory," said Eddie Harper. Later, he talked about his family being in a better place.
His brother Robert quoted the Bible, saying that "vengeance belongs unto me," suggesting that it does man no good to take up the sword and try to get even.
There was even humor when Robert talked about his mother putting her family on drugs. The audience went quiet and held its breath, sensing there might another side of the story they had not yet heard.
"She drug us to church, she drug us to youth group, she drug us to prayer meetings," he said.
No matter how inspiring, enlightening and comforting the preaching was, it was hard to ignore the huge questions mark looming over the hall -- who and why. Vengeance may be God's prerogative, but is it a sin to pray for good detective work, a defendant and an airtight case?
Some of the loudest applause of the day came when Brother Jack Stewart, the Harpers' minister from the Church of Christ in East Bakersfield, said he wanted "man's justice, but God's mercy" for the person who committed the crime.
I sat next to Charles Henry, a married father of five who works in campus security at South High School. Henry's daughter, Miesha, played basketball with Joanie Harper.
"I've cried for a week," Henry said. "We've left flowers at the house. We've talked and prayed with our kids. I've told them sometimes there are no answers. You just have to give it to the Lord."
Henry, a big strong man, has been shaken by the last 10 days. The service strengthened his faith and allowed him to mourn with the community he loves.
Unanswered was who and why. Four coffins for five people would not allow the crowd to forget. Nor would a 6-week-old boy who now sleeps with his mother.