Vivacious is just one of many words Sandy Phillips uses to describe her beautiful, bright daughter, Jessica Ghawi.
Ghawi, 25, was killed early Friday morning in a mass shooting at a Colorado movie theater that also claimed the lives of 11 other people and left 59 others wounded.
"(She was) a jolt of lightning when she came into a room," Phillips said.
So many words come to mind, Phillips said: Spunky, funny, a little clumsy, but most of all, she was kind.
"She had a huge heart," Phillips said. "She cared deeply for other people."
Aspiring to be a sports reporter, Jessi, as she was known to friends and family, was well on her way, having interned with San Antonio sports talk show host Mike Taylor at Ticket 760 Radio and at KABB-TV in San Antonio prior to moving to Colorado.
Her mother recalls their last conversation via text.
"The last thing she texted to me was, 'I'm so excited (for) your trip here next week and I need my momma,'" Phillips said.
A few minutes later, her mother got a call: Jessi had been shot and she was gone.
Now, the only thing Phillips wants is the one thing she knows she cannot have.
"I'll never have her to hug again, or get a text message again or get a funny Facebook picture, or (her asking) 'Mom, what do you think about this dress?' or 'What about these high heels?' That's the hard part, knowing those are things I'm never going to get to experience again," Phillips said. "I was blessed. Only for 25 years, but I was blessed."
More on Jessica Ghawi:
- Ghawi had many friends in San Antonio media, including quite a few at KSAT. Click here to read some personal remembrances from the KSAT family.
- You can read more from the Ticket's Mike Taylor and a program director at a radio station in Denver where Ghawi also interned here.
- Dan Weiss, the announcer for the San Antonio Rampage, worked closely with Jessica and has been tweeting about her. This link has a YouTube video of her interviewing a Rampage player.
- This wasn't the first time that Ghawi had been involved in a shooting. In June, she narrowly escaped a shooting in a mall in Toronto. She blogged about the incident, which you can read about here.
IMAGES: Jessica Ghawi
Images of former San Antonio resident Jessica Ghawi, who was killed Friday morning in a mass shooting at a Colorado movie theater.
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