SAN ANTONIO — Only a handful of parents can relate to losing a child. Parents from across the state have traveled to Uvalde to be there for victims’ families.

“This is heartbreaking to me,” Demetricia Holloway, a mother, said.

It’s a somber mood outside Robb Elementary.

“They were just at school having fun,” Rhonda Renfro said in disbelief.

The Beaumont moms drove more than five hours with heavy hearts to stand with those families affected by the Uvalde shooting.

“When it happened, we started calling and texting each other,” Holloway said. “And our own losses began to come up.”

Demetricia Holloway is the co-founder of Surviving Parents of Southeast Texas. Most of the group has lost a child to gun violence.

“My daughter, Dashondra Guillory, was murdered,” Holloway said. “And she was pregnant. She had a son.”

Dashondra was killed in 2012 by a man she didn’t know. Her mother said the heartbreak comes back when she thinks about the 19 kids and two teachers who were killed at school.

“The thought of those kids having to be in the casket,” Holloway said. “The parents having suffered a loss. It brings back to me too, that in my daughter’s casket was a little baby.”

The group is pleased to see the support coming from all over and are happy about the district’s plan to not return to Robb Elementary.

“Tear it down,” Renfro said. “Don’t put anything else here. Keep it with flowers. Keep their memory. Don’t let their memory ever die.”

Holloway says these surviving parents carry her when she can’t carry herself — the same support they will give to Uvalde.

“We know these families can’t do it without support,” Holloway said. “When all this is settled and everyone goes home, we’re going to be here.”