MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—The shadows lengthened as Michael Cole walked through the cemetery near sunset to his daughter’s grave, where he dropped to his knees and kissed the cool, dark stone of her marker.
Head bowed, his hands tenderly swept away bits of grass clinging to the headstone’s base, fingers lingering on shells and heart-shaped stones left as tribute to Lauren Cole’s life. She was 26.
Since fentanyl took his daughter five years ago, her father knows the way to Fletcher Cemetery by heart, a grassy spot lined by wildflowers and towering trees where crickets chirp on summer evenings….