What are archives of survival? What are their contours? What is their political and ideological architecture? And perhaps most important: How do we build them?For those that share their stories with us, survival is rooted in their unyielding perseverance, their will to go on despite the unimaginable tragedy and loss they have endured. It is rooted in the honoring of the life of their loved one lost to violence, reflections of the lives they lived, the lives they could have lived, and the hope that sharing their stories will help prevent future violence and help other families that have lost loved ones to violence. Survival also manifests as embodied understandings that emerge from the pain of loss and have the power to liberate us, not only from despair and hopelessness but from our carceral reality.