Jacklyn Cazares was not yet 10 years old, but she was already an “explosive” and stubborn girl who was always looking to help people in need, according to her father. Jacklyn and her second cousin Annabelle Rodriguez were very good friends along with three other classmates at Robb Elementary School.

“Now they are all dead,” said Javier Cazares. “All of her best friends were also killed.”

The girls were among 19 students who died Tuesday when an 18-year-old barricaded himself in a 4th-grade classroom at a school in the town of Uvalde, southwest Texas, and opened fire. His families can only hold on to the memories, and each other.

Jacklyn would have been 10 years old on June 10. Despite her young age, she was equal parts tenacious and compassionate.

“She had a voice,” her father commented. “She didn’t like bullies, she didn’t like kids being bullied. She was full of love. She had a big heart.”

“She was quite a character, a little beast,” he added.

Cazares took his daughter to school on Tuesday; she had an award ceremony that morning. About 90 minutes later, the family received a call: An active shooter was at the school.

“I drove like a soul from the devil,” he commented. “My baby was in danger.”

“There were over 100 people waiting, it was chaos,” he said of the scene at the school. He grew impatient with the police response and even floated the idea of rushing into the school with several other bystanders.

Cazares said her niece followed an ambulance to the hospital and saw Jacklyn being taken on board. The entire family soon joined him and pressed hospital employees for information for nearly three hours. They begged, cried, and showed them pictures of their daughter. Finally, a pastor, a police officer, and a doctor joined them.

“My wife asked the question: ‘ Is she alive or is she dead?’” Cazares recounted. “They replied: ‘No, she is dead.'”

Cazares fought back tears as he reflected on how long his daughter was in the classroom with the shooter before he died. It comforts him to believe that in her last moments, Jacklyn was doing what came naturally to her: helping her teammates.

“It warms our hearts that she is one of those who was brave and tried to help as much as she could,” he said.

Ryan Ramirez also rushed to Robb Elementary when he heard about the shooting, hoping to find his daughter Alithia and take her home, KTRK-TV reported. But Alithia was also one of the victims.

In Ramirez’s Facebook profile there is a photo, which has now been released throughout the world, in which the little girl appears wearing a multi-colored shirt announcing that she had ceased to be “single-digit” after turning 10 years old. The same photo was posted again on Wednesday without a message, but Alithia had angel wings.

Carmelo Quiroz’s grandson, Jayce Luevanos, 10, had begged to go with his grandmother Tuesday when she accompanied her great-granddaughter’s preschool class to the San Antonio Zoo. But, he said, the family told Jayce there was no point in skipping school so close to the end of the year. Also, Jayce liked school.

“That’s why it hurts my wife so much, because he wanted to go to San Antonio,” Quiroz told USA Today. “He was very sad because he couldn’t go. Maybe if he had gone, he would be here.”

Another victim who also did not want to go to school that day was Jayce’s cousin, 10-year-old Jamilah Nicole Silguero. Jamilah’s mother, Veronica Luevanos, told the Univision network through tears that the little girl seemed to sense that something bad was going to happen.

Jamilah’s friend, Nevaeh Alyssa Bravo, was also killed, and her aunt commented that the first name is “Heaven” spelled backward. In a Facebook post, Yvonne White called Nevaeh and Jailah “Our Angels.”

Two men who responded to the shooting found their children among the victims.

Felix Rubio, an officer with the Uvalde County Police Department, and his wife had been at the school Tuesday morning to celebrate with their daughter, 10-year-old Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah because the high school student 4th grade was on the honor roll after getting good grades, and also received a good citizenship award.

In a Facebook post, Kimberly Rubio wrote: “We told her that we loved her and that we would pick her up after school. We had no idea this was a farewell.”

Physician assistant Angel Garza also rushed to the school and immediately found a girl covered in blood among the terrified children streaming out of the building.

“I am not hurt. She shot my best friend,” the girl told Garza when she offered to help her. “He’s not breathing. She was trying to call the police.”

Her friend was Amerie Jo Garza, Angel Garza’s stepdaughter.

Amerie was a happy girl who was on the honor roll and loved to paint, draw and work with clay. “She was very creative,” commented her grandmother Dora Mendoza. “She was my baby. whenever she saw flowers she drew them”.

The Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home, which is across the street from the school, has started posting some obituaries for the victims. He was helping the families of the victims by offering his services free of charge. GoFundMe pages were created for many of the victims, including one on behalf of all victims that has raised more than $3 million.