One grieving mom speaks out ahead of first Mother’s Day since Uvalde shooting

The grieving mom of a young boy gunned down in the Uvalde shooting last year is cherishing memories this Mother’s Day – and fighting for reforms to prevent other parents from sharing her struggle.

“I’m not going to have a Mother’s Day card from him this year. I’m not going to have a hug from him. It’s going to be hard,” Evadulia Orta told CBSNewsTexas of her son, Rojelio Torres, who was murdered alongside 19 of his classmates and two teachers at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022. 

Orta still keeps her last Mother’s Day card from 10-year-old Rojelio tucked away in a safe place. She told CBS that the family will mark the holiday this year by visiting his grave.

“This gives us peace to know that he’s there and we can talk to him,” she said.

Orta described her late son as a “kind” boy who smiled a lot and loved Pokémon, board games, football, and Lotería. 

“He was a kind person. He loved to help people. His family… me… He helped me a lot,” she remembered.

Orta said that her two surviving children – Federico, 11, and Mary, 7 – are still struggling with the loss of their brother.

“[Mary] knows he’s not here anymore, but she still asks me when he’s coming home. I tell her ‘He’s not coming home, he’s in Heaven looking down on you. He’s taking care of you, taking care of all of us,’” she explained.

“My son takes it harder than I do. He was very close to my son.”

In the year since the shooting, Orta has channeled her grief into activism and pushed for the passage of House Bill 2744, which raises the age requirement to purchase semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21.

The 18-year-old shooter who killed Rojelio and his classmates at Robb Elementary purchased his weapon shortly after his birthday.

“We’re going to keep on talking. And we’re not going to stop fighting until justice is done and they pick up the age limit. We’re fighting for our kids, and we’re fighting for the kids that are still here,” Orta insisted.

The ‘Raise the Age’ bill advanced to the full chamber on May 8, but the House Committee on Calendars failed to schedule it for a vote.

The legislation also still faces serious pushback from Texas conservatives, including Gov. Greg Abbott.

In the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde massacre, Abbott told the victims’ families that he would not support their pleas for greater gun safety. At a press conference on Tuesday, Abbott reiterated his belief that firearms were not the immediate source of gun violence.

“I believe in the coming days the public will be much better informed about why and how this happened, that will inform us as Texas leaders about next steps to try to prevent crimes like this from taking place in the future,” he told CBS.

A University of Texas poll released earlier this month, however, revealed that 76 percent of Texas voters support raising the age – including 64 percent of Republican voters.

Meanwhile, Orta is also calling for greater police accountability after it emerged that hundreds of law enforcement officers waited more than one hour to confront the shooter in the classroom where Rojelio died.

“I blame the officers that were there that day that didn’t go into the classroom to help my kid… Help our kids and the teachers that we lost. We’re still in shock that they didn’t go in right away to save our children,” she lamented.

“It was like yesterday that it happened for us. Every day feels like that.”