VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — It's been said that music speaks louder than words. Music can comfort us when things are too overwhelming to put into words.
That was the journey Pamela Tanner took 13News Now on at the Memorial Service for the mass shooting victims in Virginia Beach.
Tanner's singing was a blessing to so many gathered at the Rock Church just days after the shooting.
"I felt such emotion. Such sadness. Such shock," Tanner said.
Tanner, a wife and mother of a special needs child, said she was honored to sing at the service. She said she felt deep inside feeling a connection to those whose lives were forever changed by the shooting.
"I know what it was like to lose someone so suddenly and way too early. It took me right back to that time when my father died," she said.
She said her father who had a career in the Navy, had a beautiful voice.
"My father was the one who inspired me to sing. I think he was my biggest fan, as he should be." He also always saw the best in people. “He said you can do anything, you just have to put the time and effort into it,” she remembers.
Tanner has been singing for as long as she can remember.
"My mother tells me I started singing when I was two... By the time I was three I could read, so I read the Broadman Hymnal,” she said.
Tanner said it was when she was chosen for the Virginia Beach All-City Chorus her life would forever change.
“I was hooked. I wanted to sing whenever, and wherever,” she said.
Today, some might find Tanner singing with a number of local groups. Her heart is deeply rooted in her church, Great Bridge Baptist in Chesapeake.
She also shares her love of singing with the love of her life. The couple sang a duet at their wedding. They also like to light up the room with Karaoke.
So who's the boss of Karaoke in the family?
"It depends on what song we're singing," Tanner said.
But it was the song she sang that night that helped to wipe away tears and point her community toward a more hopeful day. To sing is a gift she says. A gift that's to be given away. If her father were alive and would have given her any advice about singing at the memorial service, what would he have said? "I think he would have told me that you are there for them, not for you, but for them, give them all you've go," Tanner said.
Pamela and her husband have founded an organization that lets special needs kids to experience the joy of music. It's the called RavensWay Foundation.