- May 2, 2024
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As the sun went down, the beach ignited in orange, and blue, and fire.
After less than 48 hours of Facebook planning, 438 people had confirmed they would attend a candlelight vigil for 17-year-old Meredith Smith and 18-year-old Lane Burnsed, who died together in a car accident Thursday night, July 26, in Volusia County.
Nearing dusk in Flagler Beach, those people made their way down backstreets and past seaside shops to gather by the pier, where masses were already huddled, hugging each other, holding hands and trying to talk but mostly failing at it.
But the event wasn’t about words. It was about presence.
“I want to look at it in a positive way,” said Jessica Gendoes, who organized the vigil with Emily Imperio, another friend of Meredith and Lane. “Get everyone together in one area and just be there for each other.”
The theme of unity was echoed by Assistance Superintendent Jacob Oliva.
“What makes our community great is the fact that we are a family,” he said, as bodies leaned against the railings of the pier, looking down and listening. Not fishing. Not talking or sitting or scrolling through their cell phones.
Women in bikinis and men, shirtless and with board shorts dripping wet, stopped walking the shore to stand instead at the outskirts of the group, as if they were somehow drawn to it. Husbands and wives passing on the boardwalk slowed upon seeing the Flagler Beach fire trucks parked along the street and hearing the speakers pumping a few of Lane and Meredith’s favorite songs into the wind.
Gendoes said that even an elderly couple from Deltona, who had heard about the vigil but didn’t know either Meredith or Lane, traveled to Flagler to pay their respects.
That was the kind of affect these two teenagers had on people.
“Overall, they were two individuals that stood out in the crowd,” Gendoes said, standing on a walkover and motioning toward the hundreds of bodies gathered tightly together in the sand. “I was expecting 50 people — tops.”
When both Emily and Jessica talk about their friends, they can’t help but smile. Lane was a “good old boy” who would “take the shirt off his back for you,” they each said, at different times in the evening.
Jessica, who knew him five years, called Lane “shy” and “bashful” but, like Meredith, a leader.
“I think I even still have the text,” Emily said, with watery eyes. “He wrote (me) something like, ‘No matter what you need, even if I don’t have it, I’ll try to find a way to help you.’”
And Meredith, whom Emily had known for 14 years, since she was 6, was a “free spirit,” she said. She was a varsity cheerleader, straight-A student and “goof ball,” who would have been a senior this school year.
In organizing the event, Gendoes and Imperio requested that everybody bring a candle and wear either blue or orange, which were Meredith and Lane’s favorite colors. Gendoes now plans to wear blue and orange often, honoring her friends.
“I just want everyone to celebrate them, not so much mourn,” she said, as an orange paper balloon with a candle inside was released off the beach. “They were different. They were unique people. … And I just want to keep their memory alive.”
A memorial for Meredith
A fellowship for Meredith Smith will be held 3 p.m. Tuesday, July 31, at the Palm Coast Methodist Church, organized by Smith’s cheerleading coach, Stacia Davis. A memorial will follow, at 4:30 p.m.
For images from the vigil, click here.
