Tessa Fuqua took a stance with one leg out to her side, knelt on the other knee. Orange chalk in hand, she outlined the shape of a monarch butterfly on the concrete path weaving through the 7/20 Foundation’s Reflection Garden.

Fuqua, her son Amani Fuqua and dozens of other chalk artists filled the sidewalks in the garden with color Saturday as people meandered through, taking time to stop at memorials laid out for the 12 people killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting. 

It’s been 12 years since a gunman opened fire in a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.” Twelve lives were lost, 70 other people were injured but survived — and the lives of countless others were upended.

Those who died that day were: Jonathan Blunk, 26, Alexander J. Boik, 18, Jesse Childress, 29, Gordon Cowden, 51, Jessica Ghawi (also went by Jessica Redfield), 24, John Larimer, 27, Matt McQuinn, 27, Micayla Medek, 23, Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6, Alex Sullivan, 27, Alexander C. Teves, 24, and Rebecca Wingo, 32.

Saturday’s annual event, which includes chalk artists, live music, a 5K and vendors providing wellness care, is a healing space for the community and a place to remember and honor the victims of the shooting.

Fuqua, one of Saturday’s chalk artists, remembers the night of the shooting vividly, she said. 

That night, several of her son’s friends were at the theater. 

“I’ll always remember that night, all of the mamas calling and asking if my son was okay,” she said. “Only by the grace of God he happened to be sick and didn’t go.”

Fuqua has been showing her chalk art for about a decade, she said. This was her third year making art at the 7/20 memorial event.

This year, the chalk theme was “reflections of resilience,” and Fuqua worked carefully on an image of a child surrounded by monarch butterflies, the child’s glasses reflecting the monarchs, which symbolize resilience to Fuqua, she said.

“The theme carries connotations of hope, and I thought about kids in the future,” she said. “I chose to incorporate the monarch butterfly that represents resilience, and the child will be holding a bouquet of daffodils, which also represent resilience.” 

The event each year is run by the 7/20 Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit created in 2018 to host the annual memorial event and provide support to communities across the nation experiencing mass shootings, according to their website. 

Saturday’s celebration started with a 5K run, organized by Zack Golditch, a former NFL player who survived the shooting that night and is now an Aurora firefighter. 

Following the 5K, community members gathered in the reflection garden next to Aurora Municipal Center and enjoyed the chalk art, along with other festivities including a beer garden, wellness booth vendors, food trucks and live music.

On Friday night, the foundation held its annual midnight vigil to remember those lost in the shooting. 

Heather Dearman, the CEO of the 7/20 Foundation, said she has heard time and again from community members that having a celebration of remembrance on Saturday is healing. She feels the impact of it herself, having lost loved ones to the shooting. 

“Getting hugs from everybody and just sitting in that space with people and remembering what happened that night is healing,” she said. “It’s very tragic that lives were taken, but I can see around me the survivors who were left behind and where they are know and I feel less alone. And I can see that others are there because they want to be in a place where they don’t feel alone.”

Every year when the anniversary comes around, the feelings come flooding back, Dearman said. But this year has been particularly hard for some reason. 

“For some reason this year, it’s really hard for me,” she said. “But even though I’m going through turmoil right now, if I didn’t have these events to look forward to, I think it would be even harder.”