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SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas – Bob Lookingbill thought he couldn’t get any more proud of how his daughter lived her life.

Then he found out how she died.

“When the shooting in the church began, she shoved her oldest daughter out of the way and fell on top of her three other babies to protect them from the bullets,” he said while sitting in his truck outside the Ward family home on a dusty lot on a country road near Sutherland Springs. “She would do it again. She wouldn’t want to remain in this world without her children.”

“She was a fighter,” he added.

Joann Ward, Lookingbill’s daughter, was killed Sunday at First Baptist Church in a hail of gunfire unleashed by Devin Kelley, clad in black and wearing a mask with a skull on it. Two of her children – 7-year-old Emily and 5-year-old Brooke – also died in their mother’s arms, friends and relatives told The Washington Post. They were among the 26 people who were killed on Sunday at the church.

Ward’s son, Ryland, was shot in his stomach, groin and arm but remains in stable condition at a nearby hospital.

“He’ll be in the hospital for at least nine months and faces a long, long recovery and numerous surgeries,” Lookingbill said. “They thought they were going to have to amputate his arm, but now it’s looking like they’re going to be able to save it.”

Asked how a little boy moves forward from such a tragedy, Lookingbill paused.

“No idea,” he said, holding back tears.

Joann’s husband, Chris Ward, was not at the church Sunday. Her oldest daughter, Rihanna, told the family what happened in the church. Lookingbill said the little girl’s memories are trickling in piece by chilling piece, offering the Ward family shattered glimpse into their loved one’s final moments.

They are, he said, scenes no person should have to recall, much less a child. They don’t ask questions, he said, they just let the little girl talk.

“She was right there and she saw everything,” he said. “She saw the bodies on the ground. She saw her little brother’s arm fly apart. What happened hasn’t hit her and probably won’t until the funeral.”

Rihanna told her family and the FBI that after her mother shoved her away from the gunfire and into a corner, a second woman shielded her before that woman was cut down by Kelley’s gunfire as well. At some point amid the bloody mayhem, a man managed to pull her to safety.

Her grandfather said Rihanna told relatives that Kelley appeared to target her mother with extra bullets when he realized she was shielding her children.

Lookingbill called his daughter and grandchildren “precious individuals.” Joann loved being a mother and it was reflected in her kids, he said, noting that they were well-behaved and voluntarily said their prayers before eating each meal.

“She was outgoing and loving and had a sense of humor and would go out of her way to do things for people,” he said. “She raised her daughters like that, and she was loved by hundreds of people in this area.”

Among them, was her best friend, 42-year-old Cody Fuller. On Tuesday, standing on the pitch outside the family home, Fuller broke down recalling how she didn’t have many female friends until she met Ward. With her outgoing friend’s help, Fuller said, she was able to come out of her shell.