Descartes’ famous phrase, “Cogito ergo sum,” which means “I think, therefore I am,” was decaled on Angela Reyes’ back windshield. Family and friends said this was a quotation Reyes lived by.
“Angela worked harder than anybody I have ever seen in my entire life,” said Stefanie Katz, a close friend from Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills.
She was the friend who was always running to make it to class on time. She was the daughter who urged her mom to find an opera for them to see together. She was the star of her high school track team who could beat any of the boys in a race, according to friends. She was the girl who ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every single day for lunch.
Funeral services will be held at 10 a.m. Friday in Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Northridge for Angela Reyes, a freshman journalism major, who was killed in a car accident on the 605 Freeway, early Saturday morning. She was 18 years old.
Reyes was driving back to Long Beach with Priscilla Cruces, a freshman business finance major, after visiting a friend at Cal Poly Pomona, according to her family. Reyes and Cruces were traveling southbound toward Telegraph Road when the car drifted 50 feet off of the road and crashed into a tree. The two were killed on impact.
“She just wanted to go home,” said Reyes’ mother, Rose. The two had planned to have a mother-daughter breakfast on Saturday.
“She was so excited to go to Long Beach,” said Maria Kezios, another close friend from high school. “She tried so hard to get in there.”
Reyes graduated from Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills last year with special awards in both academics and track and field.
Her parents said they spent three weekends painting walls and buying furniture for her first apartment.
According to her roommate Capri Moreno, a freshman communications major, Reyes worked extremely hard on her schoolwork.
“She’d take four days to write an essay and analyze everything, even though it was perfect,” Moreno said.
“She wanted to be a newscaster,” said Alexandria Garcia, a close friend. In the last month, Reyes had been working on an audition tape for CSULB’s College Beat TV. Reyes’ father, Gary, is a cameraman for KTLA News in Los Angeles.
According to Moreno, Reyes was excited about the prospect of being on College Beat and just flew into action.
“She was working on a fashion segment with a runway and everything,” Moreno said.
“She was perfect is what she was,” said her former boyfriend and close friend, Zuhair Ammar. “From the first time I saw her, I knew she was just perfect.”
Reyes and Ammar ended their relationship only recently, and according to Moreno, Reyes planned on getting back together with him.
“She still always loved him,” Kezios said.
“I love her and I always will,” Ammar said.
Reyes’ mother recalls when her three daughters were children. The middle one, Jessica, now 20, couldn’t quite wrap her tongue around the name Angela. Instead, she called her baby sister, “Lolly.”
According to her mother, “Lolly” was the fearless one.
“Her and her sisters were best friends,” Garcia said. According to Moreno, they were inseparable.
“Angela and Jessica were so funny together,” Moreno said. “They’d try and watch movies together, but they couldn’t stop talking and laughing.” According to Moreno, the two sisters have missed many endings to so many movies because of their infectious laughter.
“Angela had such a loud laugh,” Kezios said.
Reyes was spiritual, and she was involved in Christian leadership programs in high school.
“Angela was like a rock for our family,” her mother said. “Each time I had my daughters, it was like a miracle to me. I raised three beautiful daughters and they’re good girls, but Angela – just really stood out. She was like an angel.”