Mina Justice was asleep when her son Eddie sent a text at 2am on 13 June: 'Mommy I love you. In the club they shooting.' The 30-year-old was trapped in a bathroom at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. He wrote, 'He's coming I'm gonna die.' She could not reach him again.
Sandy Phillips received a text from her daughter Jessica, 24, just before the Aurora cinema massacre in 2012. 'Get some sleep mom. I'm really excited for you to come visit. Need my mama,' Jessica wrote. Half an hour later, Phillips got a call from Jessica's friend Brent, who said there had been a shooting. He did not answer when she asked if her daughter was dead.
Phillips now treasures that final message. 'My first thought was, thank God she knows that I love her and I know she loves me because I have that last text,' she said. She has become a gun control advocate, travelling across America to share her story.
Anne Mulderry lost her son on 9/11. He worked at an investment firm in the World Trade Center. She received no final message, but remembers his last words during a phone call: 'Mom, I love you. I'm going to be okay.' He was not.
These mothers describe a complicated heartache: the texts are a comfort but also force them to relive their children's terror. Phillips reads the messages four times a year, but says it can send her 'into the pit' of grief. 'I had no idea how much I was going to miss her the rest of my life,' she said.
