Four-year-old Zoey Metcalf brushed on a little glue and then sprinkled a few crushed poppy seeds. Her mother, sister and other family members did the same.
Art projects are usually fun, but this one brought as many tears as smiles and, while uplifting in a sense, was painful beyond measure.
"It is hard just being here," Tochi Metcalf said as we stood in the back of the chapel at Woody Funeral Home on Shady Grove Road in Hanover County. "But I'm glad I came ... to do something nice for my son."
Metcalf's son Robert Franklin Shim "Franky" Hazelgrove died at age 14 in April 2008 after being struck by a car while trying to cross Cold Harbor Road. He was on his way to buy gasoline so he could mow the lawn.
His family chose to donate his organs — a decision foreshadowed by a family discussion a year earlier — and now Franky will be memorialized to a worldwide audience at the 122nd Rose Parade on New Year's Day in Pasadena, Calif. A portrait of Franky made of floral and natural materials, called a floragraph, will be featured on the Donate Life float, one of 60 such floragraphs honoringdonors.
Franky's floragraph, made of farina, straw flower and poppy seeds by volunteers in California, was shipped to Woody last week so that Tochi Metcalf and her family could see it Friday and add the finishing touches before returning it for the parade.
It was, as you might expect, an emotional exercise as the family gathered around the portrait that was placed on a table in the rear of the chapel. Franky's grandmother, Shim Hazelgrove, wiped away tears after she carefully arranged a few poppy seeds thatrepresented Franky's dark hair and eyebrows. Her 9-year-old grandson and Franky's cousin, Ben Hazelgrove, wrapped his arms around her.
"It's part of the healing process," said Franky's uncle Paul Hazelgrove, a regional market director of Dignity Memorial, a national network of funeral-service providers that includes the Richmond-area Woody Funeral Homes. Franky's grandfather, Robert "Bud" Hazelgrove, is general manager of the local Woody funeral homes, and Dignity Memorial is sponsoring Franky's floragraph.
"It's just a way for the family to get together," Paul Hazelgrove said, "and know the organ donation helps somebody else and that Franky lives on."
At the time of his death, Franky was a ninth-grader at Lee-Davis High School and played clarinet in the marching band. This would have been his senior year.
"He was a very good boy," his mother told me. "He'd always done everything I asked him. I mean, he'd grunt a little bit, but he didn't argue and just did everything.
"We'd go for walks around the neighborhood," she said, as the tears started again. "His not being here is so hard."
Come New Year's Day, Metcalf will be in front of the television, watching the Rose Parade (which begins at 11 a.m.) and waiting to catch a glimpse of the Donate Life float and her son. "I've never really sat down and watched the whole thing," she said of the parade. "But I've been telling everybody, 'You better watch it!'
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