LAS VEGAS, Calif. – It’s a family she never wanted to be a part of. A family that is sadly getting bigger and bigger.  

“You always think lightning doesn’t strike twice and for us to wake up and hear there was another mass shooting literally in our backyard,” Ellen Rivera said.

Rivera lives in Thousand Oaks, and a close friend lost their son in last year’s shooting at the Borderline Bar. As a survivor of the Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting, she knows the terror all too well.  

“Knowing we had friends and family affected, I needed to go and be there with them, I know what they’re going through. It was a chance for Las Vegas survivors to be alongside Borderline survivors,” she said.  

A family forced together by chance, but one that has stayed together by choice.

On the two-year anniversary of the day that changed her life, she came back to Vegas with other L.A. friends who survived as well, to pay tribute to the 58 lives lost. Because no matter how much healing she can do on her own, there’s no remedy like empathy. 

“When we see each other at an event, we just get each other, we’re family,” she said. 

And a universal family at that, with the Route 91 Festival bringing people from all over the world. At the Las Vegas Community Healing Garden, she sees those people whose live were cut short and it brings back that awful day.  

“The 10 minutes felt like an hour and 10 seconds at the same time. I remember someone saying don’t look,” she said. 

But she did, and that’s when she saw a woman she would later learn a lot about. 

“This is the girl that got shot that was right next to me,” she said pointing to a picture of one of the victims.

Now, being a survivor has become a part of her identity. A new responsibility she wears like a family crest.   

“A huge sense of loss, and sadness but also, just from all of this, it’s brought back a feeling of compassion for one another, it made me realize life is short and unpredictable,” she said. 

Rivera says every minute of every day has changed, not just for her and her husband, but for her other survivor friends as well. Compassion has become commonplace. Random acts of kindness the new normal. There to comfort any new additions to the family,  but hoping they don’t have to. 

“Remember, and do good. Be love and compassion. Find joy in moving forward in their honor,” she said. 

Maybe, Rivera says, just maybe…through the love they’re putting into the world, they can help the family stop growing.