“This is the story of a little girl’s love of a green dress, a mother who tries to instill independence, and how those two things came together in the most epic and brilliant combination possible."
Just seven days after it became the scene of the deadliest shooting in Texas history, First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, reopened its doors on Sunday to commemorate the 26 lives lost just one week prior.
Ryland’s uncle Michael Ward told The New York Daily News that he carried his nephew out of the church following the attack, where a helicopter rushed him to the hospital. According to the outlet, he’d found the child “clinging to a church pew” after the shooting.
In an instant, Joe and Claryce Holcombe lost children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and a future great-grandchild in what is now being called the deadliest mass murder in Texas history.
“We lost more than Belle yesterday, and one thing that gives me a sliver of encouragement is the fact that Belle was surrounded yesterday by her church family, who she loved fiercely, and vice versa.”
