AJ left school that day with someone else’s blood on his face, probably from laying on the floor with the dead and injured. Since then, he was sad, he was angry, and he was scared. And he’s done a lot of physical therapy.
“I slept well,” he told CNN, wearing a maroon T-shirt with pictures of his murdered teachers, Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia, and the 19 missing children with the words: “My teachers and classmates forever.”
Robb Elementary is closed and its students have been distributed to other institutions and virtual education. Graduating fourth graders have always been ready to move, but it’s still hard.
“I’m nervous because I’m not used to this school,” AJ admitted, his smile still strong.
It was his decision to return to personal training, said his mom Cassandra Chavez. She walked beside him on the first day and did not share her son’s strong opinion.
“I’m just nervous,” she said. “I’m just trying to be there and support him. That’s all I can (do).”
Chavez wore a “Uvalde Strong” T-shirt in honor of the victims and all those left behind. Many of the staff at AJ’s new school also wore the maroon and white of Robb Elementary.
AJ said he wasn’t sure if there would be new friends at his new school, Flores Elementary. His smile faded for a moment when he was asked about the kids in his shirt, the ones who don’t get to go back to school.
In July, his mother told CNN of the advice she gave him when he became angry that he would never see his teachers and classmates again.
“You have to be strong,” Chavez said she would tell him, “because that’s what they would have wanted you to do. Remember them, carry on their legacy, as they would have wanted you to do.”
So, wearing their images proudly on his chest, AJ got ready for school.
And with the excitement and trepidation of any first day, he entered fifth grade.
CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz and Matthew J. Friedman reported this story from Uvalde, Texas, and Rachel Clarke wrote in Atlanta.
