It started with just one voice, and was followed by a chorus. Everyone was mourning Sandie Amaya and her 12-year-old daughter, Sophie Lopez, after the two were killed Wednesday night in a wrong-way crash on Interstate 64.
At a candlelight vigil, her neighbors on Ashlawn Drive were joined by her friends and family.
"She had a very quick wit and she was, as you can see, meant a lot to a lot of people," said Sandie's mother, Laurel Adams.
Sandie was driving eastbound near Indian River Road when somehow Neil Lyness's truck went over the median and hit them head on.
Sandie and her only daughter died at the scene.
"Very kind and thoughtful, it's a devastating loss for us all," Adams said.
"She loved everybody and she was just a very loving kid," said Sophie's father, Juan Lopez. "And I told her every day I loved her."
Shoulder to shoulder, people who had known Sandie for all her 31 years, stood next to neighbors who had only known her for months.
In the candlelight they looked onto a memorial filled with cards, pictures, and stuffed animals.
It made them reflect on the two, a loving mother and her 12-year-old daughter, who were taken suddenly, and decades too early.
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