Linda S. Jordan knows that pain comes in all forms. A domestic violence survivor and 16-year breast cancer survivor, Ms. Jordan admits that there is no pain like that she experienced 26 years ago when she buried her teenage son, William Jordan III.

William was murdered in Richmond in 1990 at age 19.

“I felt a huge sense of pain and loss,” she says, “but I used my pain to make a difference. I know how it feels to lose a loved one, so I used my pain to turn a negative into a positive to help others.”

Months after her son’s death, Ms. Jordan channeled her feelings of loss into planning a holiday memorial to homicide victims and their family members. The memorial was meant to comfort families celebrating the holidays for the first time without their loved ones.

“I just wanted to get through the first Christmas,” Ms. Jordan recalls about the initial event. “But then it just grew.” As founder of the Coalition Against Violence, Ms. Jordan is hosting the 26th Annual Holiday Memorial for Survivors of Homicide at 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 9, at Richmond’s City Hall.

The memorial event is free and open to the public. Survivors are encouraged to bring pictures of their loved ones to display during a roll call of memorialized family members. Ms. Jordan also suggests “bringing candles for your personal use at the memorial if you prefer.”

When the memorial event was started in 1990, more than 100 people were victims of homicide. “Today, it’s in the 50s,” Ms. Jordan says. “And while that’s good, one life makes a difference.”

She said she plans and organizes the memorial service each year to honor each of those lives lost to violent crime in the city. She thought about ending the memorial if it was no longer needed, but “it continued because the murders continued,” she says.

In 1994, the event moved from the front steps of the John Marshall Courts Building in Downtown to City Hall. In 1996, the Coalition Against Violence sponsored the “River of Tears” sculpture by artist Donald Earley, which stands permanently in City Hall.

Dedicating the sculpture was a milestone for the coalition. The statue “reminds me of the loss homicide brings,” she says. She and a handful of dedicated coalition volunteers, including 25-year members Debbie Owens and Gilbert Wilkerson, and the late Barbara Egwim, a 15-year member who died in August, work closely with the Richmond Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office Victim-Witness Services program to put on the yearly event.

But it’s the memory of that first holiday that keeps her going.

“After every memorial, family members, friends will come up and tell me how much it means to them. There are many survivors who are at the memorial each year for the first time who express to me the pain experiencing their first holiday without a loved one,” she says.

“When you take a life,” Ms. Jordan explains pensively, “you don’t just kill one person, you kill a whole family. You kill that person’s family members and friends. I feel like people need to be reminded of that.”

Meet this week’s compassionate Personality, Linda S. Jordan:

Date and place of birth: May 8, in Faison, N.C.

Current residence: Richmond’s South Side.

Education: Associate degree in community social services from J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College; studied criminal justice at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Family: Sons, William Jordan III (deceased), Jamar, 41, and Michael, 52; daughter, Lisa, 50; four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Reason I founded Coalition Against Violence: The Coalition Against Violence started in 1994, several years after I began the vigils. We support the Richmond Victim-Witness Services program in the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office and want to support our community. Although we do the holiday memorial, we also do small events to support families of victims all year long. I’m hoping to join the coalition with other organizations so we can be out in the community more and we can share all of our knowledge to try and make a difference and hopefully to decrease the crime.

Reason for candlelight vigil: My son, William, was murdered in April 1990, and around December of the same year, just before Christmas, I got the vision from God to do the memorial. It was a vision for myself and other survivors to be a part of a Christmas celebration. Every year, I just wanted to get through Christmas. Every day there is pain, but Christmas is especially painful.

Why are some communities disproportionately impacted by crime/violence: That’s a tough question because crime and homicide aren’t isolated. There was a time when I got started where we would call it purely a city issue. But crime is not just in Richmond because we have people who come from all over who mourn.

The bottom line is that there is a breakdown in communication and there is a lot of division and separation. There has been a lot of stigma for years around black-on-black crime or crime among young people. But when you look at the numbers violent crime affects and impacts everyone.

What young people need most: Love. Without love, all the mentorship in the world will not mean anything. Love has to be ongoing. Love conquers all. You can have anything in the world, but, without love, you have nothing. And once a person knows he/she is loved, they are going to think twice about doing something negative. But if you don’t love yourself and nobody else loves you, you don’t think about such things. I think children also need good mentors. I think what would help are more after-school programs and more educational programs that can prepare young people for the workforce.

How violence impacts society: If you look at statistics today, and you look at people who are being murdered, you are losing valuable people in society. People who could make a difference are being cut down in the prime of their lives. And when you kill a person, you are taking a mother or father who was contributing to a home. That impacts taxpayers because we each have to step up and support children whose parents have been cut down.

Recommendations for dealing with violence: We have to advocate to perpetrators that there are other ways out — that you don’t have to take a life to feel better. You don’t have to use a gun or take another life. Take one second to think about it before you pull a trigger.

Role of family: My family is my most valuable asset. My family has kept me going, and the love I have for them and the love they have for me, it keeps me going.

Role of community: It takes a village. When my kids were coming up, I was a divorced parent and my community helped me to raise them and help me instill values in them. You cannot raise a child today without a village.

If I could make a wish, it would be: I know I can’t bring my son back, so my wish would be to stop the pain of murder, and to bring back love, peace and unity. To just have more love and respect in the world.

How I start the day: Prayer.

Best late-night snack: I try not to eat late, but when I do, I eat ice cream — vanilla fudge.

The person who influenced me the most: My daughter, Lisa. I lost my mother when I was a little girl. My daughter is a no-nonsense woman. She’s a hard worker and she truly believes in education, education, education. She’s a one-year breast cancer survivor and she inspires me every day.

The best thing my parents ever taught me was: Honesty and courage. Honesty will get you further than being deceitful and I raised all my kids and grandkids on that as well.

The book that influenced me the most: All of Maya Angelou’s books.

What I’m reading now: I am actually spending a lot of time now writing a book, “So Others Can Live,” which is slated to be published in several months. It’s a wellness guide to help others maneuver through diagnostic treatment to wellness. A lot of our people aren’t educated about medical technology, terms and diagnoses, so we let others make our decisions. But my book highlights the fact that we have the ability to make our own decisions surrounding our bodies and treatment, especially after proper research.

If I’ve learned one thing in life, it is: Family first. Whatever you teach and tell your family members, it will stay with them for life.

My next goal: To start a nonprofit organization to help poor people out of poverty. I know I can’t pull everyone out, but to give direction specifically to young people to remind them that education is key, and with it, you can demand what you want. You don’t have to accept what comes your way.