Irma Garcia was 48 and about to celebrate her 23 years of teaching and 25 years of being wedded to Joe Garcia before everything ended for her in the mass shooting at Texas Uvalde’s Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022.
Two days later, 50-year-old Joe joined in the afterlife of the girl he had married out of high school. The official reason for his death was a heart attack, but the family put it down to a “broken heart”.
With the 21 others who perished in the gun tragedy at Robb Elementary — including Irma, another teacher named Eva Mireles, 44, and nineteen children aged between nine and 11 — Joe became no cross number 22 for Uvaldeans to put to rest.
“I know this was too much for you and your poor heart couldn’t take it,” Joe’s daughter Lyliana said in a note scribbled on the right-side swell of the blue heart on his burial cross.
“I will spend the rest of my life fighting for you and mom. Your names will not be forgotten,” 15-year-old Lyliana wrote in her note to her father, as she joined siblings Cristian, 23; Jose, 19 and Alysandara, 13, in saying farewell to their parents.
The Garcias’ obituary said that they began their relationship in high school and were married in Uvalde, a town of mostly Hispanic, working-class people, on June 28, 1997. “It flourished into a love that was beautiful and kind,” the obituary read.
Their nephew Joey Martinez attested to that. “These two will make anyone feel loved no matter what. They have the purest hearts ever,” he wrote on Twitter.
At her service, Irma’s dedication as a teacher was upheld.
“You did what you would have done for any of us,” Uvalde’s Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller said, leading the ceremony, as he described how Irma, a lifelong educator, had given to her students “until her last breath.”
Irma was born in Texas’ San Antonio. But as a teacher, she spent every day of her career at Robb Elementary in Uvalde. She co-taught fourth grade with Eva, the teacher who was slain with her, as the pair shared adjoining classrooms.
In social media posts from years before, she celebrated the school’s ritual of welcoming back former students dressed in the district’s maroon school colors for “senior walks” ahead of their graduations.
“Seeing them return to their elementary schools wearing their cap and gown … is the reason every teacher in this district does what they do,” Irma wrote. “That moment makes all the struggles, long hours, and endless paper work so worth it.”
Joe was born in Uvalde. He had worked for the town’s H-E-B grocery store for decades, rising from a produce stocker to management, said Juan Silvas, who had known Joe for two decades.
“He would always want to make sure that everything was right, trying to make sure everything was great, so that way the next person behind him wouldn’t have to do too much work,” Silvas said.
All images of Irma Garcia reproduced from her tribute video on rekfunerals.com
* Tribute adapted from Irma’s official obituary on rekfunerals.com
