More than 200 people packed an emotional memorial service on Wednesday for two Northeastern University students whose lives were cut short in a car crash in Dubai, with one relative proclaiming “we love you still.”
Many in the spillover crowd at the Fenway Center choked back tears as speakers recalled the lives of Victoria McGrath, 23, of Weston, Conn., and Priscilla Perez Torres, also 23, of Puerto Rico.
They were roommates and best friends who became especially close when McGrath was seriously hurt in the Boston Marathon terror attacks in 2013, and Torres helped her recover.
Veliz Perez, Torres’s older sister, said Wednesday that her sibling was “a light” and “a ray of sunshine” who always strove to help others, and who possessed a beautiful singing voice.
“Thank you, God, for Priscilla’s life,” she said during her emotional remarks. “Thank you for letting me be her sister.”
The Rev. Doug Wheeler, McGrath’s uncle, addressed both of the deceased when he said, “we loved you living; we love you still.”
He remembered his niece as a young woman with an adventurous spirit who always felt compassion for those around her.
“We know that she lived fully, and that she lived well,” Wheeler said, adding that his niece was a woman of faith who often traded Bible verses with Torres via e-mail.
As various speakers took the lectern on Wednesday, a slide show displayed photos of the two young women behind them. Both were beaming in every picture, often holding one another close.
A sorority sister of Torres, Sara Panahi, said that the victims shared a remarkable friendship and that Torres was “a girl out to change the world.”
Torres studied biology at Northeastern and planned to move to Texas with the goal of becoming a doctor. She also served as a co-op and volunteer at New England Baptist Hospital, where officials described her last week as “an important part of the team.”
McGrath studied business administration and was “devoted to helping others through leadership in student organizations and community service work,” Northeastern president Joseph E. Aoun said in a statement last week.
He said during Wednesday’s service that both women “were similar. They both touched others.”
They will receive their degrees posthumously at May’s commencement, where their lives will once again be celebrated, Aoun said.
He also recalled meeting McGrath at Tufts Medical Center, where she was being treated after shrapnel from the bombings riddled her leg.
One of her first questions, Aoun said, was who specifically cared for her at the hospital. “She wanted to help them,” he said.
McGrath and Torres died in a deadly car crash early on March 6 near Dubai’s Jumeirah Lakes Towers neighborhood. They were headed to Bali for spring break.
Also killed in the crash were Canadian boxer Cody Nixon and a man believed to be his cousin.
Authorities in Dubai have confirmed that speed and alcohol appeared to be factors in the crash. It was not clear who was driving at the time.
During Wednesday’s memorial service, solemn piano music greeted mourners on their way in and again as they left the building.
Alexander Levering Kern, executive director of Northeastern’s Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service, urged attendees to look to one another for support during their time of grief.
“At Northeastern, we are in this together,” he said.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@ globe.com.