A ten-year-old girl killed in the Texas school shooting this week begged her mum to stay home on the morning of the massacre.
Jailah Silguero asked her mum to let her stay home on Tuesday - the day her and 18 other children, and two teachers were killed in Salvador Ramos’ sickening shooting.
But, because there was only two days left in the school year, her mum insisted she go in.
Now the heartbroken mum says that if she had said yes, her young girl might still be with her.
Jailah’s grandmother, Linda Gonzales, spoke to The Daily Beast and said: “Jailah didn’t want to go to school yesterday.“
She added that’s what really upset Jailah’s mum, Veronica Luevanos, and left her thinking: “If only I had let her stay home”.
However, the family’s heartbreak didn’t end there.
When the gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, he also killed Jailah’s little cousin, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos.
And their tragic deaths came only a week after the family mourned the loss of Veronica’s own father, meaning she lost her daughter and dad within the space of one cruel week.
Gonzales said: “They were just so sweet. They were sweet kids and lovable. What can you say about little innocent kids?”
“I don’t have words. We think this is a small community, it can’t happen here, but oh my God, it’s happening anywhere.”
Veronica and her partner Zeke Luevanos were among the parents and relatives who raced to the Uvalde civic centre to try and find their missing children.
The mum’s phone died as she waited for hours for any news of her child. She travelled back and forth from the civic centre in Uvalde where they were told to go to reunite with children, to the school.
Meanwhile, grandmother Gonzales said one of her nephews worked for the local sheriff’s department and responded to the horrific scene.
He had to go home because his clothes were drenched in blood.
She described how he’ll “never forget” the aftermath of the horror shooting and how he picked up and moved the children’s bodies so they could be covered up.
Like many, Gonzales raged about the ease with which an 18-year-old bought a rifle and launched a sickening attack on a primary school.
However, whilst so much of the US mourns, its politicians seem once again caught in a stalemate, unable, or unwilling, to do anything about the country’s gun problem.
On Facebook, Veronica mourned the untimely loss of her beloved daughter.
“Why why my baby,” she wrote. “Fly high baby grandma n grandpa are with their arms wide open for baby. We're going to miss u so much my wera Chula my lil side kick.”
The horrific shooting began after Ramos shot his own grandmother, with whom he lived, then drove to the school.
He crashed the truck but approached on foot and shot at local police who tried to stop him.
Once inside, he barricaded himself inside Irma Garcia’s fourth-grade classroom before seemingly indiscriminately firing at them all.
