It was the last leg of a trip that Otilia Arriaza had made more than a thousand times, when the 70-year-old Herndon woman finished her mile-long walk to work by crossing Baron Cameron Road where it meets Bennington Woods Road. But on Dec. 29 it would be the last time she made the trip.
Arriaza was struck as she crossed the intersection south towards Bennington Woods Road by a motorist driving a Saturn station wagon a little after 6 a.m. Two hours after being airlifted to Inova Fairfax Hospital, the mother of two, originally born in Guatemala who came to the United States for a better life nearly eight years ago had died.
The 55-year-old Stanley, Va., man who had been driving the car was released after police arrived, as the accident was ruled accidental, according to Fairfax County Police officer Camille Neville.
As of Jan. 8, Arriaza's body was awaiting her return to Guatemala, where family members will hold a funeral and she will be buried alongside her older siblings, according to her daughter, Claris Ayala, who lived with her mother on the 300 block of Reneau Way in Herndon.
ARRIAZA WORKED two full-time jobs to help support her family, immigrants from Guatemala who settled over the course of several decades in Herndon for its large number of job opportunities. On weekdays, Arriaza would leave home at 5 a.m. to walk to her first job as a cleaning assistant at a senior care facility in Reston, most nights not returning before 10 p.m., said Ayala, who works preparing food in the kitchen at Herndon's Outback Steakhouse.
But through the work weeks that often totaled more than 80 hours on the job, Ayala said that her mother had an extra task that took precedence over all the others: her family.
"She was a very hard worker, she worked two jobs, she was working all the time, and it was all to give her family a chance at a better life," Ayala said. "She spent all of her free time taking care of her children and her family, shopping for food."
On Sunday, one of her rare days off of work, Arriaza, a staunch Catholic, would attend Mass at area churches with her family.
Despite the often long work weeks, she never lost her enthusiasm for life and her family, said Antonio Chavez, a family friend who lived with Arriaza for about six months before her death.
"I always admired her vitality, she was always taking care of everyone, putting everyone before herself," Chavez said. "The normal person, after working as much as she did, would be exhausted. But she always had such a great level of enthusiasm that words cannot describe."
FOR AYALA, who remembers waiting several years and working through the country's immigration system to attain a visa to bring her mother to the United States, the loss is unimaginable.
It is a loss that she said is all too often overlooked by the community and the media.
"It's a constant struggle for anyone who wants to have that legal status, to make a good life for themselves and their families in this country," Ayala said. "She walked to work everyday to make that happen — because of that she didn't have the money for a car."
Ayala said that she just wants people to be cautious while driving, as many immigrants and people without enough money for cars often must cross dark and busy roads to get to work before the sun rises.
"A lot of people might look at something like this as not important," she said, wiping tears from her eyes. "But this was my mother, and every person's life matters."
"It doesn't matter where we come from. We are all equal."