A funeral service for a Marine born in Metairie and raised in McComb, Miss., was held Saturday, eight days after a roadside bomb killed her in Anbar Province in Iraq.

Emotion ran high, as friends and family gathered to say goodbye at a funeral for Lance Cpl. Casey Casanova.  The services were held in Summit, Miss.

Casanova, 22, was remembered as brave, compassionate, stubborn and loving by those attending.

"She had the most wonderful smile I've ever seen in my life. I mean, it was just incredible," Craig Casanova, her father, said.

"She was a lot of fun, but she was also a serious friend,” said Haley Miller. “I can say with great certainty -- the best friend I ever had in my life."

Casanova’s life ended when an IED exploded, hitting her Humvee. She was killed along with three other Marines.

"I'm numb. I mean, I don't even feel like I'm here,” her mother, Paula Carruth, said. “I want to cry and I want to and I can't."

Mourners said that they remembered the passion Casanova had for life, but that was cut short.

"She was making plans for the future,” Miller said. “She was going to come home and get married and we were going to go dancing again."

“I think Casey was at the very peak of her life with anticipation of looking forward, of having achieved what she wanted to achieve in one way and looking forward to her marriage to Brandon," Gayle Martinez, her aunt, said.

Casonova’s mother discouraged her from enlisting, while her father encouraged her to pursue her goals, but both mother and father said that what they have lost is irreplaceable.

"Every parent is always scared for their child,” her father said. “But you've got to leave that in God's hands. When you go to war, somebody's child is going to get killed. That's just how war is."

"My daughter uplifted me,” her mother said. “She would not allow me to uplift her. She uplifted me. That's what she did, that's who she was.  She loved everyone and wanted peace and that everyone should know is that peace is all that matters."