When Susana Guzman was laid to rest Monday afternoon, mourners offered up not only prayers for the deceased, but also for the living.
Guzman, 18, was one of seven Cary-Grove High School students killed last week when their school bus was struck by a commuter train in Fox River Grove on Wednesday.
Her brother, Rafael, 14, also was a passenger on the bus, and he remains hospitalized in critical condition.
So when family and friends gathered at the First Baptist Church in Crystal Lake for services to remember Susana, they opened with a prayer for Rafael.
"While we're praying for Susie, please also pray for Rafael. We hope he may be out of the hospital soon," Rev. Miguel Barrientos told the 300 people gathered for the service.
With Monday's funeral for Susana Guzman, and separate services for Joseph Kalte and Jeffrey Clark, six of the victims now have been buried. The seventh, Stephanie Fulham, will be buried Tuesday.
In Spanish, then in English, mourners at Guzman's service, beginning in the morning, spoke of a teenage girl with heart. The Cary-Grove senior used her money not for herself, but to buy things for the children in her extended family.
There was a hush and collective soft sigh in the church and nods at the burial site in Windridge Memorial Park Cemetery near Cary when it was announced that Guzman had decided to donate her organs.
" `If I should ever die,' " she had told her mother, " `I would want someone else to live,' " related Barrientos, a pastor from Elgin who helped conduct the service.
This kindness didn't surprise Carol Velasquez, 18, of Elgin, a friend of Guzman's who had attended elementary school with her.
"It seems like something that Susie would have done. She was like that.
"She was always laughing, always happy," Velasquez said. "She was always there if you wanted someone to talk to."
More than 1,200 mourners, about two-thirds of them teenagers, attended the funeral service for Kalte, 16, at the Cary United Methodist Church on Monday morning.
The crowd overflowed from the sanctuary into the fellowship hall, where the service was broadcast over an intercom system.
After the service, the students left the church in groups, their faces solemn, a few talking quietly to one another, a few fighting back tears.
Some 300 mourners followed a procession to Windridge Memorial Park, gathering around Kalte's pale-blue casket, which was surrounded by bouquets of flowers.
Rev. Robert L. Baker, pastor of United Methodist Church, urged mourners during the service to purge the "three demons of sorrow, anger and guilt" and told them that "one of the ways to do this is to celebrate Joe's life."
Deborah Zopp, a friend of the Kalte family, sang "Tears in Heaven," an Eric Clapton song, and more than a dozen people followed with brief remembrances of Kalte.
They recalled how Kalte loved life and people, and tried to do things to make them laugh. He also loved music, they said. A reading of the 23rd Psalm ended the service.
Hundreds of mourners gathered Monday evening at Cary United Methodist for services for Clark, 16, a sophomore, whose burial was private.
Up the street, a crowd formed at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, where visitation was held for sophomore Fulham, 15. The visitation was moved from Kahle-Moore Funeral Home to the church to handle the crowd, organizers said.
All day and into the evening, the crash site at U.S. Highway 14 and Algonquin Road in Fox River Grove continued to be a focal point for teens trying to cope.
In the late afternoon, five students from Cary-Grove High School sat in a circle on a slab of cardboard at the scene of the accident. In the center burned seven black candles.
The site beside the railroad crossing has a mound of flowers, religious pictures, American flags and teddy bears so dense that it could rival the appearance of any teenager's bedroom.
Kim Keenum of River Grove, a sales representative, paused at the scene of the accident while she was on the road for work Monday.
Keenum said the stories have touched her deeply because she has children of her own.
"It scares me to think of what we do," she said. "We put them in the hands of someone else, and then you just don't know what's going to happen."
Teresa Robertson, 15, of Fox River Grove was sitting in the middle of the bus the day of the accident. She had a soft cast on her right wrist and a light-green bruise still visible on her right cheek as she sat at the scene with the other four classmates.
"I knew it was coming," she said, referring to the train that hit the back of the bus. "But I didn't know what was coming. You know what I mean?"
Mike Azzano, 16, of Cary hugged her. "All of us were crying that day. We didn't know if she was OK."
After the accident, some legislators renewed a cry for seat belts on school buses. But the students on the scene Monday disagreed with those efforts.
"Seat belts wouldn't work," Bill Nielsen, 15, said. "If the people couldn't get out without seat belts on, having the seat belts on and then having to take them off would have just made it worse."