UVALDE, Texas – Kimberly Rubio started running three years ago, a daily routine inspired by her fitness enthusiast mom.
Now, she’s working to process the pain, she says, that lingered nearly a year after tragedy killed one of her daughters in her hometown of Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022.
“It’s the only time I really let myself think about what happened that day,” Kimberly Rubio told “20/20.” “If there was a place I could go to escape this pain, I would have already booked my flight.”
Families across Uvalde have shared their heartwarming and unimaginable journeys over the past year, for the ’20/20′ special report, documenting the long-term effects the community faces after a mass shooting. The special, part of a year-round on-the-ground reporting effort, will premiere Friday, May 19, at 8 p.m. CT on ABC, and will air the following day on Hulu.
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Kimberly Rubio and her husband, Felix Rubio, are the parents of Alexandria “Lexi” Rubio, one of the 21 victims killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting.
Kimberly Rubio said, “I shouldn’t be here describing my daughter. She should have made her own mark in this world.” “I’m not done raising Lexie.”
Felix said he visits his daughter’s grave almost daily to talk to his daughter and to kiss her at her gravestone.
“I was supposed to pick it up from school,” said Felix Rubio. “We all know I didn’t.” “I think in a way, going out every day is the hope I get to carry.”
Even though it was Lexie’s last home, they decided it would be best to move to a new home across town.
The couple sat across from each other in August 2022 on the floor of their living room packing souvenirs collected from all their children, including a crayon drawn by Lexi and which Kimberly later tattooed on her arm.
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“Once everything moved, it was just me and Kim there,” Felix Rubio said, calling for Lexie, and shouting, “Time to go, Lexie.” That was hard.”
Gloria and Javier Cazares, parents of 9-year-old Jacqueline Cazares, said their daughter and the events of May 24 are still on their minds.
“I know she knows how much we miss her,” said Gloria Cazares. “How I long to give her that hug.”
Jazmine Cazares, Jackie’s sister, has channeled her grief into activism in various ways throughout the year.
“I’m always fighting,” said Jazmine Cazares. “But she’s at home when it’s hardest. You don’t see it when I cry ugly in my little sister’s room.”
Javier and Jazmin Cazares showed Jackie’s “20/20” bedroom, the place where the family feels most comfortable. Pictures and tributes to Jackie cover the walls inside. Some items, such as the jewelry on the dresser and the colored lights hanging on the ceiling, remain exactly where Jackie left them.
“I come here morning and evening and talk to her as if she were here,” said Javier Cazares. “This is where I could hear you giggling and talking.”
For the teachers and students present at Rob Elementary that day, survival came with a wave of physical and emotional consequences.
Arnie Reyes has been a teacher for nearly 20 years and was a fourth grade teacher this past school year. He was in his class with 11 students at Rob Elementary and was the only person who escaped from that room.
Reyes’ classroom was connected via interior double doors to the classroom of teachers Irma Garcia and Eva Meirelles, who were shot dead along with eight of their students.
“As a teacher, you never think about losing a single student,” said Arne Reyes. “But to lose 11 at a time, and then lose your co-workers, and then the other little kids who were in that class you know—that’s a lot at once.”
Reyes, who suffered gunshot wounds to his arm and back, recalled the difficulties of “not being the kind of person on the pill to become a single person,” as medical and health exams were his daily routine.
Although Reyes “would have loved to be in a classroom again someday,” he decided not to return to teaching to focus on his rehabilitation at home, mostly from a new armchair his father gave him after he returned from the hospital a month later.
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“Everything just stopped,” Reyes recalls. “It got to that point where I didn’t want to go out… after being home for so long, trying to go out into society and trying to do as normal things as you can normally do… and then it was kind of hard because they gave you all back.” something “.
Reyes realized that this anxiety was not intentionally shown by others when he was in public, but he hoped people would now realize it was one of the difficulties that survivors like himself face.
“I want them to always remember the 21st [victims],” Reyes said when asked what he wanted the audience to learn after watching the “20/20” special. Of course, I don’t think they will ever forget. But I think they also need to remember the survivors. A lot of focus has been on the 21, and I don’t want to take that away, but a lot of survivors, we still have to live with pain and suffering.”
Parents of children who were just doors away from the scene of the shooting said they saw how their families would never be the same again.
Daniel Garza was 9 years old and was in a classroom on May 24 where his teacher was shot but survived after being hit by a stray bullet that he believed had penetrated the walls.
Daniel’s mother, Briana Ruiz, said her son was “always laughing” and a “fun and relaxed” child before the shooting.
“Today, he’s still funny, but he’s worried a lot now,” Briana Ruiz said. “A lot of people don’t see when he has anxiety attacks, when he has PTSD… I never imagined there would be so many obstacles and repercussions.”
In the weeks after the shooting, Daniel said he began waking up at night and struggled to sleep through the night. Briana Ruiz said she learned it was important for her family to be involved in therapy sessions and to talk openly with each other, so the family developed a routine of attending the counseling sessions available in Uvalde.
“It helped me talk more to my therapist,” said Daniel Garza. “She gave me some markers and a notebook, so I could write down whatever gets me up in the middle of the night.”
The start of a new school year has brought new concerns about the safety of children returning to classrooms. With Robb Elementary closed, students based in Uvalde have moved to one of three other elementary schools in the area. Some students have moved on to private education in Juvaldi or to virtual learning options from home.
Daniel Garza chose to start his fifth year of school at an elementary school in New District, near where his mother taught pre-school in the neighboring city of Sabinal. He also said he felt safer at Sabinal Elementary School because the buildings had erected doors and teachers were allowed to carry guns in the school.
As the sun sets during an autumn night on a community field in Uvalde, Daniel joins fellow youths in youth soccer practice. The new season was the first time he played soccer.
“I chose to get back on the field because I have a lot of anger,” said Daniel. “I think it helped me with some of my anger…all the support, it makes me happy.”
“Daniel is starting to make some progress. Keeping him busy and he’s starting to see a different side of his recovery is starting to help,” Brianna Ruiz said.
Other former elementary students from Rob like Kaitlyn Gonzalez are taking their toll on May 24th. She was in a classroom across the hall from Reyes.
Starting the night of the shooting, Caitlin asked her mother, Gladys Gonzalez, to sleep next to her at night because she didn’t feel safe in the dark or alone.
“Once the evening begins, you can start to see how the anxiety starts to build up. She needs constant reassurance,” said Gladys Gonzalez.
Kaitlyn’s parents discussed with 20/20 how they learned to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder they say she suffers from. Kaitlyn often has her noise canceling headphones nearby because of the loud noises that tend to make her anxious.
The family has learned to communicate before completing certain routine tasks, such as when a bag of ice cubes is pulled together from the freezer.
“When my dad tells me he’s going to break the ice, he’ll tell me when to go into another room,” Caitlin said.
“PTSD manifests in different ways,” said Gladys Gonzalez. “We see headaches and abdominal pain in them.”
Caitlin said working alongside her therapist helped her get to a place to try to sleep again on her own and she’d been doing so for about three weeks, at the time “20/20” asked her in March 2023 about her sleep habits.
Although Gladys Gonzalez said she feels “the future looks bright” for Caitlyn, her family has focused on “navigating each day as it passes.”
Caitlyne is routinely taken after school by her parents for a wide range of activities such as Girl Scouts, karate, and guitar.
WATCH: Uvalde school survivors tell their stories through photos
This curriculum is in addition to our weekly therapy appointments, which is an approximately 90-minute round trip to San Antonio.
“Our main goal was to take her mind off the shooting,” Caitlin’s father, Nev Gonzalez, said.
Sharing her experience, Kaitlyn, who was 10 at the time of the shooting, told “20/20,” “So no other kid will go through what my friends and I went through.”
While running, Kimberly Rubio occasionally stops in front of a portrait of her daughter, Lexie, painted on a brick building in downtown Uvalde. It is one of a series of murals created by Texas artists to honor the lives lost.
The murals are a place Kimberly Rubio said she and other mothers love to visit because it has preserved some of the joy the victims left behind, full of memories that balance out the pain, and the drive to keep moving forward.
“It’s so easy to want to put all the bad things in the world aside, but if we forget, it keeps happening over and over again,” Kimberly Rubio said.
ABC News’ Ismael Estrada, Andrew Fredericks, Denise Martinez Ramundo, Thomas Navia, Elisa Stoehler, Megan Hundallstreet and Marilyn Schoizou contributed to this report.
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