The couple, along with their three older biological children and their two other adopted daughters, Shaohannah, 8, and Stevey Joy, 5, were all barefoot during the service as a mark of reverence to ground made holy, they said, by the loss of Maria. Standing in front of the tiny white coffin covered with pink flowers, they took turns holding the young girls in their arms and embracing the son whose car hit Maria. Tears streamed down the 17-year-old’s face and he wore Maria’s pink security blanket around his neck throughout the service. In a letter Shaohannah had written to God and her lost sister that her father read aloud, she asked for prayers for her brother. “He has been sobbing,” she wrote.