The Biggest Price

Everyone came from all over Houma to the little church, where the two children were funeralized, victims of a fire whose cause is still not specifically determined.

It’s not like God needs a lot of coaxing to make sure two tiny souls get admitted to heaven, but everyone came just to make sure they were prayed up appropriately.

It was also a time for the grownups to grieve, to show their sadness, to be together in one big group.

As my colleague Channing Parfait reports in this issue, Romell Welsh Jr., 2, and Ro’Miyah Welsh, 1, were placed in the same white casket, a pink and a blue teddy bear their honor guards, sitting atop the lid as the mourning went on.

The mother, Vaneshia Valentine, carried the casket out of the church, and it is unimaginable just how onerous a task that must be.

The father, Romell Sr., he was in the church but disappeared for about five minute and came back to the sanctuary, where the choir sang “How Great Is My God” and all the other hymns, in a place so heavy with sadness that its ash-blonde walls could barely hold it, and one of the mourners actually fainted as the preacher spoke.

The father did a lot of speaking too, last week, about how he tried getting to his children after sprinting to the house on Hobson Street where they had been left alone.

Romell Sr. had left first, earlier that night, and at that point they were in the care of Vaneshia.

But she didn’t stay, and headed out to find Romell which didn’t take all that long.

There is no way to know whether the stove, which was ignited to dry some boxer shorts earlier that night, was left on when Vaneshia departed and that will have to be figured out later.

As of this point, authorities have obtained warrants for both parents, surmising that even if one didn’t have the where-with-all to make sure the children stayed safe, the other should have.

Therefore just as the children will sleep forever in the same box, the parents are expected together to see a judge, and to stand before Justice as the children stood before God.

“If we arrest one, we are arresting the other,” said Lt. Dana Coleman of the Houma Police Department.

The authorities could have sought warrants earlier, but wanted to wait until after the children were properly buried before doing so.

It is this type of humanity that makes even the cops and prosecutors in this bayou country stand out from people in a lot of other places, a sense of propriety that becomes harder to find these days.

Days before the funeral when Romell Sr. described what happened the night of the fire, in his mother’s home wearing a red Puma T-shirt, he complained of how his wife had in the past left the children alone, just as other relatives had said in the days after the tragedy.

In returning to the house he could be said to have played a hero’s role. Certainly the picture of a man struggling to enter a burning house to retrieve his children would indicate that.

True heroism would have been evinced by a man who returned to the house where he knew the kids were alone, defenseless and vulnerable.

But he didn’t show up until it was too late, just like Vaneshia did not show up until it was too late.

And so it all culminates in this horribly sad service and the burial that followed in the cemetery called Southdown, with everyone haunted by the knowledge that these deaths were preventable.

But more than that, the entire tragedy is a reminder that everywhere, not just here, children die not because of something they have done but because of adults who make incredible mistakes. In most cases everyone gets a pass and nothing bad happens. But there is always that one time, that one instance, where lightning strikes, or a stove malfunctions.

And then everyone loses.

As of this writing, warrants charging Valentine and Welsh Sr. with manslaughter had been signed by District Judge Randy Bethencourt. Arrests were expected Tuesday.

But no matter where the wheels of justice stop during this particular spin, one thing is very clear.

Unfortunately it is the children who end up paying the biggest price, no matter what.