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My Friend Went to School in Uvalde
She went to Robb Elementary when she lived there
I had tea with a friend today. She’s been in a lot of emotional pain lately.
She lived in Uvalde for several years as a child. She went to Robb Elementary School there. When she heard the news, it hit her heart. Photos of the school triggered her. Because she remembered the building. She remembered the community, the people.
For several days, she shut down emotionally. She is an artist who stayed in her studio trying to process the grief in private.
Today she came over and she was able to talk about it, but we had to be careful. I let her take the lead. I watched her body language. I tried to share her grief and thereby make the burden lighter.
I did ask her what the community was like.
“It was like 90% Hispanic,” she said. “In my 2nd grade class, there were only 2 other white kids. When I was there, it was a smaller community. Now it’s grown in size, but people are still sorta spread out. So if someone is being abused, people might not know about it.”
“One thing I remember,” she continued. “If we needed medical care, we had to go to San Antonio. We didn’t have a hospital in Uvalde. Now, though, they have one. And we didn’t have air conditioning in the…
