FOR his 10th birthday Nicholi Smith told his father he had one wish — to visit the final resting place of his mother, Natalie Dobson, stand by her graveside, and talk to her as he often did when she was alive. But, instead, he left Dovecot Memorial Park and Crematory in tears and with a broken heart because he could not locate her grave.

His father, Rupert Smith, said months of anticipation and excitement quickly turned into sadness last Tuesday when he and his son saw plot markers, which hold the names of the deceased buried at the cemetery, uprooted from the ground and laid in a pile. Beside the pile, a wreath with Dobson’s face lay covered in dirt, but it was not enough to confirm the location of her grave.

The moment captured on a video and posted on social media showed the elder Smith bending down to brush the dirt from the wreath, expressing his disappointment at the state of Dobson’s final resting place. He panned the camera to his son, who turned to him in search of answers, later breaking down in tears when the reality sank in that he would not get to fulfil his only birthday wish.