APOPKA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0On Wednesday, the body of U.S. Army soldier Mariyah Collington was brought home to Central Florida. In May, Collington was in Morocco for training when off duty, her and another soldier fell off a cliff during a hike. Her body was recovered a few days later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As her body was brought back home, her friends and family waited for her arrival outside Marvin C Zanders Funeral Home in Apopka. It was a very heavy day for her loved ones, but her family members say emotional as it was, it also is a huge sense of relief for them, that Mariyah is home and now they can start to heal.<\/p>\n
There were long moments of silence, as Mariyah Collington came home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to celebrate her life, and now we get to do that,\u201d said Cherlette McCullough, Mariyah\u2019s cousin.<\/p>\n
It was a big crowd, at a loss for words, but the same thing was on everyone\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very hurt right now. It is hard to navigate right now, seeing my family go through what my family is going through,\u201d McCullough said.<\/p>\n
Mariyah was 19 years old, but family members say she lived every day of the last 19 years to the fullest, with a big smile and lot of dance moves.<\/p>\n
\u201cMariyah was always a beautiful little girl, always dressed nice, always respectful, always the life of the party, those little TikTok videos people see and stuff that is her real personality,\u201d McCullough said.<\/p>\n
For the past the month, the family has been sharing old stories, looking over pictures, and keeping Mariyah\u2019s memory alive.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe loved her family. Her and her brother was very close,\u201d McCullough said.<\/p>\n
Her two brothers meant the world to Mariyah, and now her older brother, Keyshawn, is in basic training and will continue Mariyah\u2019s legacy of service to the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cMariyah was always a very strong young lady, so I wasn\u2019t surprised about her going into the Army, and our family wasn\u2019t surprised about that,\u201d McCullough said.<\/p>\n
To the rest of the world, Mariyah will always be remembered as a soldier. But to her family, she will always be remembered as their entire world.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe will never be forgotten,\u201d McCullough said.<\/p>\n
Cherlette has found help and healing through therapy and prayers. She has been reading her Bible a lot more, especially as she searches for the perfect verse to read during Mariyah\u2019s funeral service, which is scheduled for Saturday, June 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"APOPKA, Fla. \u2014\u00a0On Wednesday, the body of U.S. Army soldier Mariyah Collington was brought home to Central Florida.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1011,274,28,30,29,1190,115,139,9429,278,835],"class_list":["post-295482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-top-stories","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-human-interest","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-sarah-winkelmann","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}