A profile of a Caitlyne Gonzales, a survivor of the Uvalde massacre, who at the age of ten, grappling with unfathomable trauma, has become a voice for the friends she lost:
“Stop, stop, stop. This is Jacklyn,” she told her mom, looking out the passenger window at the grave where her visits always began, because Jackie Cazares was her best best friend. They’d first met in pre-K, when Caitlyne asked if she wanted to play on the swings.
“They need to cut her grass,” Caitlyne said, reaching down to brush the dirt off a doll that had been left amid the flowers.
She was standing in this same spot on June 10, the day Jackie would have turned 10, when her phone rang. Another fourth-grader, Mayah Zamora, was FaceTiming her from a hospital in San Antonio, where the girl was still recovering from her bullet wounds. When Caitlyne told her where she was, Mayah asked if she could sing “Happy Birthday” to Jackie, so Caitlyne held her phone out over the grave.
