SYRACUSE, NY ( Associated Press) — Roberta Drury, a 32-year-old woman who was the youngest of 10 black people killed at a Buffalo supermarket, was remembered for her love, tenacity for family and friends at her funeral on Saturday Was “and above all, the smile that can light up a room.”
“Robby,” as he was called, grew up in the Syracuse area and moved to Buffalo a decade ago to help his brother in the fight against leukemia. He was shot and killed on May 14 for buying groceries at a Top Friendly market targeted by a white gunman.
“There are no words to fully express the depth and breadth of this tragedy,” Friar Nicolas Spano, parochial vicar of the Assumption Church in Syracuse, said during the service. The stately brick church is not far from the place where Drew was raised in Cicero.
“Last Saturday, May 14, our corner of the world changed forever,” he said. “Life is over. Dreams shattered and our kingdom plunged into mourning.”
Drury’s family wrote in her obituary that she “couldn’t walk a few steps without meeting a new friend.”
“Robbie always made a big deal out of just about anyone when he saw them, always making sure they felt attention and love,” his sister, Amanda, told the Associated Press by text before the service.
Amanda Durie said the family asked for a donation to the Buffalo Zoo, where the sisters enjoyed hanging out.
“She was the light that shone in whatever darkness existed,” Spano said. He added that mourners will remember Drury’s “kindness … love for family and friends, his perseverance, his tenacity, and above all, the smile that can light up a room.”
Drew is the second victim of the shooting, which has been praised.
A private service was held on Friday for Dear Deacon Hayward Patterson in a church near the supermarket. More funerals were scheduled in the coming week.
Topps was encouraging people to join their store in a moment of silence to honor the shooting victims at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, the estimated time of the attack a week earlier. Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown also called for a 123-second silence from 2:28 p.m. to 2:31 p.m., followed by church bells rang 13 times across the city in honor of the 10 killed and three wounded. .
A candlelight awakening was planned at a Buffalo supermarket in the evening.
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