Gold: Keeping Them Alive
"Celebrating their life keeps them alive," says Persephone Modeste, a therapist based in Rochester, N.Y., where friends and family pay tribute to loved ones killed by gun violence using customs and rituals that signify death is not the end of life for the deceased. Loved ones are celebrated and kept close through objects and events that honor their legacy. "Sometimes, the pain bears you down so much that you have to think of something joyful to be able to move on because it can be debilitating," says Modeste.
Ray Ray’s Tribute
Friends and family of Raymond Walls Jr. cheer as a dirt biker performs a burnout on his bike in honor of Walls at his makeshift memorial in Rochester, N.Y., on Sept. 4, 2022. The night prior, Walls was shot and killed in the shopping plaza nearby. When a fellow rider dies, motorcycle and dirt bike riders come out together to perform burnouts as a tribute. Walls, who was 27, was also shot in 2017 and survived.
