WASHINGTON – Four years after a Metro Red Line train crashed and killed nine people, the friends and family of those lost came out to hold a candlelight vigil.
Tawanda Brown organized the vigil at the Greater St. Paul Baptist Church in Northeast D.C., just a short walk from the bridge overlooking the crash site. Her daughter LaVonda “Nikki” King died in the crash.
“The loss is of such greatness and you have to learn to live with that piece that’s gone. But if you can open, share your story with someone else and let you know what you’ve been through, we’re able to heal better that way,” she says.
Brown organized a shrine at the bridge overlooking the crash site, which includes flowers and a painting of her daughter with a white dress, wings and a halo. But even the shrine, a vigil, and sharing her story doesn’t make all the pain go away.
“It’s very hard for me to even hear the rumbling of the train. I still have anxiety about it. I just imagine the screeching, the impact, her screams, those things still are vivid and play in my head,” she says.
Her other daughter Keonda King has a similar reaction.
“I don’t want to hear Metro. When I do hear Metro trains, I just break down and cry,” she says.
But King didn’t shed many tears, rejoicing at the fact that the vigil was as much about celebrating the lives of their loved ones as it was about crying about their lost.
Indeed, before and during most of the service, people were embracing, talking and sharing fond memories. They were singing and dancing to hymns about gaining strength through faith.
But sometimes it’s a struggle to find that strength, a constant battle everyday.
“I pray everyday and I lean on my family. It’s also good to lean on other families that have gone through the same thing. Cry on their shoulders, support one another,” says Monica Cochran, whose sister Veronica DuBose died in the crash.
Her mother Carolyn Jenkins decorates the bridge every June 22 and on Veronica’s birthday with flowers.
Clare Wherley says it’s been a difficult healing process. Her brother Maj. Gen. David Wherley was killed.
“It’s been four tough years just trying to get past it. But I don’t think you ever get past it,” she says.
But some like Evelyn Fernandez still find it hard to make it through the day. Her mother Ava died on the train, leaving her then 18 years-old, to take care of her siblings.
“It still hurts. I lost my mother. She was everything I had. She was my best friend and the only person who really understood me,” says Fernandez, fighting back tears while speaking.
As the service came to a close, everyone took the short walk to the bridge overlooking the crash site to light a candle and sung “A Hero Lies in You” by Mariah Carey.
Brown says she wants this to make an annual event on June 22.
Meanwhile the National Park Service and the District government are working together to build a small memorial to the victims between Greater St. Paul Baptist Church and the overpass above the crash site on New Hampshire Ave.
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