MURALS HONOR THE CHILDREN AND TEACHERS WHO DIED IN THE SCHOOL SHOOTING IN UVALDE, TEXAS
There is one for each of the 19 children and two adult teachers killed last spring
Traveling west by car to Uvalde, Texas, you end up on State Highway 90. It is not scenic. It's mostly just a dreary succession of stores, fast food joints, gun shops, gas stations, quite a few supermarkets, a few chain hotels and, finally, closer to Uvalde, fields so desiccated that they seem almost yellow.
Along the way, you pass dozens, maybe hundreds of billboards too large to ignore, which of course is the idea. There is a profusion of ads for personal injury lawyers. LAW … GUN proclaimed one in giant letters between the smiling images of two white men dressed in jackets and ties. The meaning of that one escaped me. My friend, Walter, a retired lawyer in Dallas, who was driving, had to explain it.
The funniest sign was the warning that hitchhikers you see may be escaped inmates. We laughed at that one. But the more I thought about it, the less funny it seemed.
The evidence that we were getting close to Uvalde was an increasing density of commercial businesses, a few Mexican restaurants, traffic lights and then, to end the suspense, a sign disclosing that we were, in fact, entering Uvalde, population 15,312.
We drove into town to an area with a few stately older buildings near a pretty square with a fountain in the middle. Across the square, in the window of a beauty parlor, I saw a handwritten sign that read, Uvalde Strong. On the wall between two low-slung brick buildings, I caught just a glimpse of a very large, very colorful mural. We had come to see the murals.
There are 21 murals scattered around Uvalde's tiny downtown, one for each of the 19 children and two adult teachers who were killed last year at Robb Elementary School.
On May 24, 2022, the children -- most of them 9 and 10 years old — and the teachers had gone to school, happy, healthy, alive. Summer vacation would be starting soon. Then, an 18-year-old man-child who was too young to legally buy a beer in Texas, but not too young to buy an AR-15 style semi-automatic, walked into their school and ended their lives.
In the United States last year, there were 300 fatalities on school property involving guns. That was a record. The numbers are shocking but they don't capture the human dimension of gun violence. The terror. The sorrow. The unfairness of it. The yawning emptiness after the funerals, after the investigators and reporters and grief counselors have gone.
Walter parked the car on the square and we got out to find the murals. We first came upon the portraits Maranda Gail Mathis, 11, and Jackie Cazares, 9. Their images, close to 20 feet high, were painted on the side of a building shared by a law office and a realtor. In her portrait, Jackie smiles gently. Her eyes seem to twinkle. Her dark hair cascades onto her shoulders. She is wearing a pendant with a gold angel. There are flowers, leaves, a hummingbird. The Eiffel Tower (a dream of hers to one day visit?). In a purple thought balloon, it says: "I Love You To The Moon And Back."
Maranda is standing in shallow water. There are water lilies and fish. There are 11 fish, one for each year of her life. She is smiling. Her arms are extended in the pose of an offering. Cupped in her hands is amethyst crystal. Amethyst is her birthstone. Maranda is beaming serenely.
Many years ago, when I was a young local TV reporter in New York, I was assigned to do a story about a high school girl who’d been thrown to her death from the roof of the public housing high-rise in Queens where she lived. As I recall, a group of boys had assaulted her and, when she resisted, hurled her over the side. They were arrested.
I went by the girl's school to see if they had any photos of her. They had one. It was from a yearbook, a small photo that showed her laughing and joking around with some friends. That was when it hit me. The awful tragedy of a young life cut short by someone else’s madness. I was angry.
On the other side of the building where we saw Maranda's and Jackie's murals, we found those for Neveah Bravo, 10, Rojelio Torres, 10, and Eliahna "Ellie" Amyah Garcia, 9. Neveah's mural features birds, roses and butterflies. Above her head is a white banner with the message, I Love You. In a box in the bottom right are messages from her family. In the tiniest script, it reads: Mom Loves You Always Forever."
Rojelio's mural is wide with a pale blue background. Some of his favorite cartoon characters are perched on his shoulders as he gazes straight ahead with an enigmatic expression. He wears a tee shirt that says Difference Maker. On the right, there is the figure of a football player in full motion and below that it reads, "The Life of the Party."
In her mural, Ellie holds a basketball under her right arm. She is wearing a maroon basketball jersey over a black tee shirt. She smiles benignly, maybe a little shyly.The colors in all of the murals are startlingly vibrant. In each, the boy or girl is looking straight at you. The children are surrounded by images of the things they enjoyed in life. In each, you can see and feel the energy, the innocence, the boundless potential of childhood.
It made me angry.
Abel Ortiz Acosta
I spoke by phone to Abel Ortiz Acosta, 56, an artist and associate professor of art at Southwest Texas Junior College. He came up with the idea for the murals the day after the shootings. His first idea was for one mural that would be painted on the side of a downtown building that he owns."Then I thought that wasn't big enough," he said. "Twenty-one victims. It's got to be monumental. It's got to be more than just one mural. So, I thought about 21 murals across the town. Portrait murals. That's how the whole idea started. I wanted to start to heal the community and to make sure we don't forget."Ortiz began by raising funds and finding the artists to do the murals. He joined forces with Monica Maldonado of the non-profit MAS Cultura in Austin. Together, they identified, vetted artists and selected artists from throughout the state. Next, they approached the families of the victims, asking their permission and cooperation. They expected a dozen, maybe 15 of the families would agree. All of them did.
Photo credit: Abel Ortiz Acosta (Instagram)
In June, work on the first mural began. The artists worked at night to escape the blast furnace temperatures of South Texas summer. One of them was Ortiz, who was a friend of Ellie's family. He would paint her mural.As he painted, until well after midnight, often Ellie's parents -- Jennifer and Steve -- were there, watching, absorbing, reflecting. Sometimes they would remember something that their little girl she especially liked -- ramen noodles with hot sauce, Takis chips, a cross -- and Ortiz would add it. Family members picked up brushes at his urging and painted flowers. "It was a collaboration," Ortiz said.
By October, the 21 murals were finished, plus four others. The murals for Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez and Xavier James Lopez were painted side-by-side. The 10-year-olds were keen on each other. It was a secret it seems everyone knew.
Arnulfo Reyes, a teacher who was wounded in the shooting, said, "He would make things for her, He would write notes for her. It brings a smile to your face just to think they really loved each other."
On Annabell's mural, there's the image of a cell phone with a text message from Xaxier, "I love you."
When Lalo Diaz, the Uvalde County justice of the peace and native of the city, saw the murals, he was worried.
One of Diaz's duties is to investigate any unnatural deaths that occur in the county. He was one of the first people to enter the school after the shooter was dead and see the horrific scene. As the murals went up, he wondered if they might prevent the town from healing, from achieving what he called closure. He was concerned they would make the family's grief even worse."
Lalo Diaz
At first, I was. like, oh my God, how is this going to make the families feel?" he said. "I didn't understand. Now I think this is the best thing they could've done."LALO'S PHOTOFor the parents, brothers, sisters, friends, the murals have become a place to visit the children. They gaze at their portraits, sometimes for hours. Some bring food. set up a table or spread a blanket on the asphalt and share a meal. A friend of teacher Eva Mireles has her morning coffee beside her mural. And, most days, Ellie's parents, Jennifer and Steve, stop by just to say "Good morning."
Today, the murals of Uvalde are like shrines. They are a place where the families and friends of the children and adults who were killed that awful day last May can find a measure of comfort. There, they can talk to their child. And listen.
What a wonderful way to remember these children and teachers who gave up their lives to this monster.
Beautiful murals of the children and teachers ❤️