Kentwood, Mich. ? For five weeks, he sat by her hospital bed, talked to her, held her hand.

During those many hours together, Aryn Linenger said he never doubted that he was comforting his beloved girlfriend of three years, Laura VanRyn.

“I saw her hands, her feet, her complexion, and I can’t believe that it wasn’t her,” Linenger said during a memorial service for her Sunday at Kentwood Community Church. “Even to this day, it’s amazing to me that with all that time we spent together, that I just didn’t know.”

VanRyn’s family and friends were thankful she had survived the van crash that killed five people until it was revealed last week there had been a terrible mix-up.

The young woman recovering in a Grand Rapids rehabilitation center for more than a month was not VanRyn but Whitney Cerak, a fellow Taylor University student who closely resembled VanRyn.

VanRyn’s family planned to exhume the 22-year-old college senior’s body, which was buried April 30 under a tombstone with Cerak’s name.

“She brought more joy to us than we could ever imagine,” her older brother Kenny VanRyn told the 1,900 people at the memorial service.

Lisa VanRyn, left, plays a tribute during a memorial service for her sister Laura VanRyn at the Kentwood Community Church in Kentwood, Mich. In the background from left are an unidentified mourner, Laura's boyfriend Aryn Linenger and Kenny VanRyn. The 22-year-old college student mistakenly was believed to have survived a deadly van crash in Indiana. The west Michigan woman and four other people from Taylor University were killed April 26 when a tractor-trailer hit their van.

Lisa VanRyn had maintained a Web log about the hospitalized woman who she believed was her sister before Cerak’s family took over the journal last week.

“I hope that in whatever time I have left here, I have come close to loving people the way that she did,” Lisa VanRyn said.

Members of VanRyn’s congregation also prayed for her and her family during a church service earlier Sunday.

“This week, we were introduced to a concept that can only be called retroactive grieving,” said the Rev. Andy Smith of Forest Hills Bible Chapel.

Members of Cerak’s family, however, “have experienced a resurrection of sorts, and we can rejoice with them,” he said.

About 180 miles to the north in Cerak’s hometown of Gaylord, about 1,000 worshippers at Gaylord Evangelical Free Church offered prayers and listened Sunday as the Rev. Jim Mathis described the reunion between Cerak and her parents after the mistake was discovered.

“I saw a scene from heaven,” Mathis said, his voice choking with emotion. “I’ll never be the same, folks.”

Cerak, who bore a resemblance to VanRyn, was in a coma until recently and suffered a swollen face and broken bones, cuts and bruises and brain injuries in the crash.