NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Loved ones said their last goodbyes to 14-year-old Brandy Wilson who drowned in the Mississippi River in April. The service also celebrated her sister, 8-year-old Ally Wilson-Berry, whose body has not been found.
“I still have to go to sleep at night knowing my daughter is still gone,” the girls’ mother, Octavia Wilson, said. “I don’t have her. This won’t bring no peace to me.”
Still, with the help of her neighbors, Wilson put on a brave face and did what she said her daughters would have wanted.
“We’re going to celebrate. We’re going to party today through it all,” Wilson said. “If my daughters were here, my 8-year-old, she would party. She loved to dance.”
So, they danced. A second line followed the funeral with Brandy leading the way and these New Orleanians paving the way for the city to fight back against the hardships.
“We need to keep our faith,” family friend Michael Willis said. “We have to believe in ourselves and come together as a community to figure out how we’re gonna fix not only the tragedy, but the trauma as well.”
Willis then called on state and local officials to help out. Some of them were at the service Saturday to show their support for the families that went through so much.
“What happened on that river was unfortunate but heroic — kids who were giving their lives to save one another,” New Orleans Councilman Oliver Thomas said. “We don’t have a lot of heroes and this family produced heroes. Don’t we honor our heroes?”