SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — At a table inside the Indian Springs High School library, Mandy Pifer sat alone, the last name of her boyfriend killed in the San Bernardino terrorist attack printed on a label in front of her.
Nearby, relatives of the 13 other people killed sat and waited anxiously. Some clutched memorial service programs with the photos and biographies of their deceased. One held the invitation to President Obama’s 2009 inauguration his brother-in-law had gleefully obtained.
Pifer wrote out a sign with the words, “I got you.”
When Obama and first lady Michelle Obama entered the room and made their way from one table to the next, spending about 10 minutes with each family Friday evening, the grief, sadness, and frustration of the last 17 days were firmly on display.
“It just felt like they were really present in their conversation with me,” Pifer said. “They are sick and tired of doing these things, meeting our families.”
For nearly three hours, the Obamas met with relatives of the nine men and five women killed Dec. 2 when a married couple opened fire on the husband’s colleagues at a work holiday gathering in San Bernardino. Consoling the victims of gun violence has become a grim ritual throughout Obama’s presidency. The meeting Friday came as some families are still burying their dead.
“My brother will never get his daughter back,” said George Velasco, whose niece, Yvette Velasco, 27, was killed. “But at least we know they are taking it very seriously.”
When Obama approached the Velasco family table, he told the family he knew nothing he could say would ever truly comfort them but said he was sincerely sorry for their loss, Velasco said. The family showed the president a picture of Yvette Velasco, and her father told Obama how proud he had been of her work as an inspector with the county Department of Environmental Health.
Obama told them he and his wife were parents, too, and said “they cannot imagine a loss like ours.”
“I couldn’t believe that he was spending that much time with us,” Velasco said. “It was heartfelt. I could feel it. It was something he really felt and believed.”
When Obama reached the family of Isaac Amanios, he asked the 60-year-old health inspector’s wife about how long they had been married and about his three children and their lives.
He told Amanios’s children that they were their father’s legacy.
The family showed Obama the invitation Amanios had received to attend the president’s 2009 inauguration. Amanios had raised money for Obama’s 2008 campaign, even though the immigrant from Eritrea was still not eligible to vote, his brother-in-law, Robel Tekleab, said.
Obama made a joke about how cold it was that 2009 day, and the family laughed.
“I know it helped tonight,” Tekleab said. “I can’t speak about the future. But it certainly did a great thing tonight.”
Pifer sat at one of the last tables Obama and his wife visited. While she waited, she wrote out a sign with her boyfriend Shannon’s Johnson’s final words. Johnson’s colleague, Denise Peraza, who survived the attack, said Johnson huddled with her under a table that morning and told her, “I got you.”
Pifer and Peraza are planning a foundation in Johnson’s memory.
The Obamas promised to provide whatever support they could.