‘She always expressed her love for you’
Las Vegas victim mourned
Nearly a thousand of Rhonda LeRocque’s friends, family members and loved ones packed into Tewksbury Memorial High School yesterday to say goodbye to a loving wife, cherished mother and beloved daughter whose faith was the bedrock of her life.
“People knew her as a fireball, because she talked to individuals about the God she loved so much,” said Larry Hubbard, the leader of LeRocque’s Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation.
Flanked by about a dozen floral bouquets — one in the shape of a heart — Hubbard said LeRocque was completely devoted to her husband, Jason, and 6-year-old daughter, Aliyah, and described the family as “some of the most loving, kind people we have ever met in life.”
“She always expressed her love for you, her family,” Hubbard said. “She always talked about them, she loved her family, she loved her daughter, she loved her husband ... That’s what makes it so hard, makes it so difficult.”
LeRocque, a devoted Jehovah’s Witness who grew up around Lowell, met her husband at a Kingdom Hall in Billerica and loved to bake, cook and go apple picking.
“Every one of us, we’re hurting real bad,” Hubbard said. “We’re grieving.”
Hundreds of mourners packed into the high school auditorium as hundreds of others watched a live video feed in the gymnasium. Throughout the memorial service, many of those gathered shed tears and sought the comforting touch of those beside them.
LeRocque, 42, was among the 58 people who were shot and killed two weeks ago at a country music festival in Las Vegas. Hundreds of others were hurt. LeRocque’s husband said she was one of the first people hit when the shooting began and died from her injuries despite a frantic attempt by strangers to carry her to a truck and take her to a local hospital.
Jason, Rhonda, Aliyah and Jason’s father, Roy LeRocque, were in Las Vegas for the Route 91 Harvest Festival. Roy LeRocque was watching Aliyah in a hotel room when the shooting began. Six-year-old Aliyah spent much of the memorial with her head on her father’s shoulder.
In a statement, Jason LeRocque said the community’s outpouring of support has been uplifting.
“Rhonda would have been overwhelmed at the outpouring of love, concern and support that so many have shown to me, to our daughter, Aliya, and to our whole family,” LeRocque said. “Rhonda was the center of our universe, beautiful, talented and a person who made all around her feel welcome and loved.”
Paul Poteat, a Nevada businessman who helped the LeRocques with transportation and a distraction for Aliyah in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, attended yesterday’s memorial to pay his respects.
After Hubbard spoke, mourners joined together in singing a Jehovah’s Witnesses song, “Light in a Darkened World.”
“In these days, dark and lawless days, shines a light we can see,” the auditorium sang, many joining arms with one another. “Like the dawn of another day that will soon come to be.”