NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — It’s a bedroom to which 9-year-old Evelyn Dieckhaus will never return.
Evelyn’s bedroom has now become a place to grieve.
A place just to feel her presence.
"We both go in and lay on her bed a lot," said Evelyn's father, Mike Dieckhaus.
Evelyn's mom, Katy, chimed in: "The three of us will do that."
Their oldest daughter is now 12 and, like her parents, also experiencing unimaginable grief.
"Sometimes, the three of us," Mike agreed.
"All of us feel like a part of us is missing — a big part," Katy added.
In spirit, they are still a family of four.
"Just with our Ev watching from above now," Katy said, fighting back tears. "It's been so hard. It's so sad."
Evelyn Dieckhaus was one of six victims killed in last year's mass shooting at Nashville's Covenant School — three 9-year-old students and three staff members.
For more than nine months now, the families who lost loved ones that day have been grieving — some days, just trying to figure out how to go on.
Now, the Dieckhauses want to tell the story of the precious child they lost that day.
They hope that, by telling Evelyn's story, Tennesseans will see their child as more than just another statistic.
Instead, in Evelyn's face, Katy and Mike want you to see their baby.
"She would just give the biggest, like, squeeze bear hugs," Mike remembered.
She was a daughter.
A little sister.
And, now, another victim of America’s epidemic of gun violence.
"She is a gift," Katy said. "Both of our babies are a gift. Children are gifts."
Evelyn's mother whispered, "We just dropped her off at school. That's all we did."
That day, March 27, 2023, a shooter walked into Covenant School, a small Christian school that itself had felt like family.
Katy and Mike rushed to the neighborhood along with other families, where they were quickly reunited with their oldest daughter.
Fear gripped their every being, as they tried to process the tragedy.
"Surely we would hear that our Evelyn was OK, surely," Katy recalled in a recent talk before a small group in Chattanooga.
The frantic mom spotted one of Evelyn’s classmates through the window of a fire station where the children had been evacuated.
"I asked her through the glass, ‘Have you seen Evelyn? She frantically stated: ‘We don’t know where she is,'" Katy recalled.
"Deep down, I knew.”
They would soon learn that their sweet little Evelyn and the others never had a chance against a barrage of gunfire from a well-armed, mentally ill shooter.
As the Nashville community came together to grieve and protesters descended on the Tennessee state capitol, the Dieckhaus family quietly buried a child and a beloved sister.
A few days later, Evelyn’s backpack was returned to the family.
"It was just another moment of me feeling like my legs were going to buckle out from under me — having her backpack come back with all of her things she was so proud of," Katy said.
In the backpack, the couple found Evelyn’s journal from school.
Among Katy's favorite moments is an entry from November 2022.
Evelyn's aspirations were simple, but profound.
"I hope the Lord will be with me this November and that I can do 20 good things for others this month," the innocent child wrote.
Her list included ideas like "share your markers, forgive, hug your teacher, have people rise in kindness, laugh."
"She had some good ideas that I think we could all learn from," Katy said.
Then, there was Evelyn’s new year’s pep talk to herself at the beginning of 2023.
"Dear Snickle Frets," she began, using a term of endearment given to her by a grandparent.
"Happy New Year! I have to give myself a new year's pep talk so here we go. You don't have to be like everyone else. You be you, girl. You don't have to be best. You don't have to be perfect, ma'am. You need positive energy, girl.
"You can be who you want— yourself! So nice pep talk, huh? Well, bye."
Evelyn signed off, "Your #1 fan, Snickle Frets."
We noted, "She had an incredible sense of humor."
"She did," Katy agreed. "She was really witty, really witty."
Evelyn's father Mike added, "She was just fun to know, She was just fun to be around."
Three weeks after the Covenant shooting, the Dieckhauses headed to Tennessee’s Capitol Hill, hoping they'd find people who needed to hear Evelyn's story.
"And we didn't even know what we wanted or what we needed, but we knew something. We knew something needed to change," Mike recalled.
We noted, "And these were the people who could make those changes."
Evelyn's dad answered, "That's what I hoped so."
Like with so many other mass shootings, the search for real change out of the Covenant tragedy has proved to be elusive.
"It's an out-of-body nightmare experience that so many shouldn't be going through," Katy Dieckhaus said.
Yet, in Evelyn’s Bible, the family finds strength and hope.
"She underlined 'walk faithfully with God,' 'walk faithfully with God,'" Katy said, pointing to a section from the book of Genesis. "She underlined, 'I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.'"
Katy and Mike said they hope Evelyn’s name will also be a blessing — her story, a motivation to those with the power to do something to end the cycle of violence in America.
"And we want people to really look at working together and coming together to try to make things better because we know she wants that," Katy said.
"We know she wants that."
TUESDAY AT 6 PM: Katy and Mike Dieckhaus reveal what they've experienced as they try to get new laws passed to protect other children.