Uvalde Mother Shares Her Hopes for the Afterlife, Three Years After Taking pictures (Unique)

The mother of a woman who was killed within the 2022 mass taking pictures at Robb Elementary College in Uvalde, Texas, is sharing her thought of the “excellent afterlife” — one during which she lastly will get her daughter Lexi the ice cream she promised her simply hours earlier than her dying.

On Could 24, 2022, Kimberly Mata-Rubio’s 10-year-old daughter, Alexandria Aniyah “Lexi” Rubio, made the varsity honor roll and gained the Good Citizen award. Kimberly attended the ceremony honoring Lexi and her son, Julian (who additionally made the consideration roll) after which went again to work. Earlier than she left, Kimberly kissed each her kids goodbye and instructed them their grandmother would choose them up from faculty and get them ice cream to rejoice their accomplishments.

The ice cream date would by no means occur, with Lexi being among the many 19 college students and two academics who died throughout the taking pictures later that day, after a gunman entered the varsity and opened hearth.

Lexi’s trainer, Arnulfo Reyes, was the only survivor of her classroom on the day of the taking pictures, and commented on an earlier video posted to Kimberly’s TikTok: “I hope to see them once more.”

In a response, Kimberly addresses Reyes’ remark, saying, “I take into consideration that loads.”

“I hope that once I go, I am proper again in that cafeteria,” she says. “And I ask so that you can pose for an image with Lexi and this time, afterwards, I get it proper, and I keep along with her and we get that ice cream.”

She continues: “That is what the proper afterlife appears to be like like for me. I do know we will see them once more.”

Kimberly, an promoting government on the Uvalde Chief-Information, has expressed her grief overtly on social media, saying in one other video that she is “not spiritual,” however believes she and Lexi will likely be “collectively once more in no matter comes subsequent.”

“I do assume that our souls will immediately acknowledge one another,” she says. “We’re so intertwined. We belong collectively. I’m not myself with out my kids.”

Talking to PEOPLE, Kimberly says she’s sometimes open about her emotions, however has shared a few of her ideas about grief on TikTok as a result of it seems like a secure house.

“This was my introduction to grief,” she says. “I hadn’t misplaced anyone previous to Lexi. It is the worst type of loss, for a guardian to lose a toddler — and particularly on this method.”

One thing she’ll always remember about Lexi, Kimberly says, is her penchant for ice cream — mint chocolate chip, a taste each mom and daughter cherished. She’s even posted about eager to be buried with a pint of it, captioning that TikTok, “We’ll want a candy deal with whereas I inform her all of the locations I’ve taken her and all of the individuals who know her title.”

Remembering that closing day of Lexi’s life, Kimberly muses, “I usually take my kids residence after faculty occasions — issues like picnics for folks or awards ceremonies … This time, she did keep at college. And that was goodbye.”

Three years later, Kimberly — a mom to 4 different kids, ages 20, 17, 14 and 11 — says she goals to be as current as doable.

“The individual I used to be, the mother I used to be … all the pieces is totally totally different,” she admits. “I do not know the way I do it. I simply attempt to present up and be their mother. They want a mother, they want routine and construction. I need to be the mother that Lexi remembers me as.”

Nonetheless, she and the remainder of the household really feel Lexi in all places.

“That first birthday with out her — we went to the cemetery. Simply the day earlier than, my oldest daughter had been asking for some form of signal and on the cemetery, an exquisite butterfly landed on the necklace I had with Lexi’s thumbprint and simply type of curled round,” she says. “It was only a lovely second. We’re all the time on the lookout for her; I really feel like she’s all the time with us.”

It’s her closing moments with Lexi — with the promise of mint chocolate chip ice cream and the enjoyment of the consideration roll hanging within the air — that Kimberly says she hopes to return to at some point.

“And I hope that it’s as if none of that occurred, and I hope Lexi does not know what occurred subsequent,” she says. “We had promised her ice cream. I do consider that is the place my afterlife will start.”