Jimmie Wallet walked through the lobby Sunday where a Baptist choir sang to the heavens, where pages of child-painted art stretched wall to wall, where a table held bundles of flowers for his wife and three little girls.

He looked tired and teary-eyed in his white tank top, with long, dark dreadlocks tucked into a striped beret, leaving traces of gray at the temples.

He gave long, tight hugs to everyone as he squeezed through the crowd. He wore lipstick on his cheek from kisses.

Mourners touched his arm as he talked with a man with a rainbow on his tie, as children carried balloons twisted into red hearts.

He pointed to a picture of his baby, Paloma, 2, as her image flashed on a screen. He reminisced with everyone else in a room full of sad people.

Two weeks ago, Wallet's wife, Michelle Wallet, 37, and daughters Hannah, 10, Raven, 6, and Paloma, nicknamed Paloma-loma-Lou, were inside the family's La Conchita home when the earth crashed down.

They were trapped in a mudslide that buried 13 homes and killed 10 people in the community between Ventura and Carpinteria, the place Jimmie Wallet called Never-Never Land.

He had dug through rubble on his knees alongside rescue workers. The bodies of his family were pulled from the fallen hillside 36 hours later.

Wallet and his 16-year-old daughter, Jasmine, are the sole survivors of their family.

After living through a disaster that captured the nation's attention, mourners said goodbye on Sunday the way Michelle Wallet would have wanted: through celebration.

During a memorial at her aunt's home in Ventura, a harpist played and a singer performed "Ave Maria."

Max Van Der Wyk, Michelle Wallet's grandfather, described how she home-schooled her girls, teaching them respect, to be unselfish. He talked of her skill in cooking, sewing and gardening, old-style trades he feels hold families together.

Others spoke of her strength, her lack of fear of anything, maybe even death.

"You couldn't help but feel her presence because of all the love that was around," Van Der Wyk said. "Not many 37-year-olds would have this many people (mourning her). Everyone was a close friend to her."

Jimmie Wallet and his daughter Jasmine released white doves into the air, and the ceremony closed with "Amazing Grace."

When hundreds of mourners moved to the Elks Lodge on Main Street, Jasmine Wallet followed her father. She wore a flowered skirt and an American Red Cross badge clipped to her pink purse identifying her as a La Conchita resident.

The reason a young mother and her little girls died is something many could not explain as they hugged and wiped away tears, but one fact was clear: The family was loved.

Visitors wore name tags describing their relationship to the family: uncle, cousin, lifelong friend.

In a darkened dining room at the lodge, a ukulele-laden version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" played as pictures of Michelle and her dark-eyed, chubby-cheeked daughters flashed on screen: three angelic little girls in pumpkin patches, sitting down to tea parties with a black kitty, swimming in a backyard pool, snapshots of three little lives that ended 14 days ago under a wall of mud.

In the lobby, a framed picture featured little, dark-haired Hannah holding a green paper umbrella and wearing a matching one in her hair.

There was a picture of little, blond Raven standing in a patch of violets, wearing pigtails and a violet-print dress.

There was a picture of little Paloma, the baby, black-tendriled and plump in her lilac jumper on Easter, hauling her yellow basket over her shoulder, a baby on a mission.

Beside the pictures was a table covered with tulips, roses and lilies in vases, each with a hand-written card:

"In memory of Hannah."

"In memory of Raven."

"In memory of Paloma."

"In memory of Michelle."

Michelle Wallet's godfather, Ajax Mart, faltered while seeking words to describe how loved and how sweet Michelle and her daughters were. Maybe the words don't exist.

"They were like," he said, pausing, "part of me."