Brenda Lee Marquez-McCool, a mother of 11 children, was dancing with her son at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando when a gunman entered in the early morning hours of June 12 and opened fire.
Rather than turning to run, Marquez-McCool shielded her son as shooter Omar Mateen pointed his rifle at them.
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The 49-year-old Orlando woman was shot multiple times and killed, but her son, 21-year-old son Isaiah Henderson, lived.
“I never thought that her life would be ended right in front of my eyes. I kept so positive that she was going to make it,” Henderson said at her funeral at the First United Methodist Church of Orlando Monday.
The young man broke down into tears as he paid tribute to his mother, NBC news reported. Several of his brothers rushed to console Henderson as he continued speaking.
“Everybody who knew my mom knew she was the mom everybody wanted. She always took everybody in with open arms,” he said. “She loved everybody equally, no matter what.”
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Marquez-McCool’s sons and daughters introduced themselves by number as they spoke about the resilient woman described as a fighter, a loving mother who had beaten cancer not once, but twice.
“She was a warrior,” said Farrell Marshall Jr., No. 5 of Marquez-McCool’s 11 children, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer spoke at the funeral and said that after she was mortally wounded she had told her son to flee and save himself, according to the Sentinel.
Dyer declared Monday a day of mourning in Marquez-McCool’s honour.
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Following the service, 49 white balloons were released in memory of Marquez-McCool and the other victims, according to the Sentinel.
Dyer said he was proud how the city of Orlando came together in the wake of the worst mass shooting in modern American history.
“My hope is that Orlando will be remembered, not as the site of a horrible shooting, but as the city that showed others that love can conquer hate,” he said in a statement Monday. “My hope is that Orlando’s tragedy is remembered as the event that led our country into a new era of embracing diversity, equality and fairness.”
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