TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Every April, the non-profit organization Homicide Survivors Inc. holds a candlelight vigil during National Crime Victims' Rights Week.
The vigil serves as a way for survivors like Sylvia Alvarez, who lost her son in a DUI car crash in 2015, to honor their loved ones while finding comfort in knowing they’re not alone.
"It’s a tragic loss, and you’re not prepared for that," she said. "So when you’re around other people that understand that level of loss, it’s a sense of healing on a different level."
The executive director of Homicide Survivors, Dennisse Ley, says the trauma of losing a loved one to homicide is one you never fully heal from.
"Being a survivor and living with the fact that your loved one was taken from you in a violent manner is something you just learn to live with," Ley said. "It’s not something that you get over."
While that trauma may never go away for so many survivors like Valerie Savedra, who lost her cousin in a DUI crash 45 years ago, through the power of community, that pain can become numb, even if it’s only temporary.
"If you haven’t lost somebody or been through a traumatic event, you don’t understand it," Savedra said, who was also a passenger in the same vehicle. "It’s good to be around people like this because we are all the same, we all have the same broken heart."
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