PORT FOURCHON - Before the year is over, a 16-foot-tall statue of a mermaid rising from the water will stand on Louisiana's waterfront as a memorial to all who have died at sea.

  

A woman whose son was lost diving in the Gulf of Mexico worked with families of some of the men who died when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig caught fire in 2010 to commission The Lady of the Gulf Seaman's Memorial .

  

Cindie Roussel's son's body was never found after he went diving in 2011. She tells The Daily Comet there's a double loss when there's nothing to grasp.

  

The Greater Lafourche Port Commission donated the land where the statue will stand at Port Fourchon. It is being created by Robert Bruce Epstein of Lakewood, Colorado.