WHITE HALL, Ark. – The night before graduating from White Hall High School, Benjamen Redix was shot and killed on May 18, leaving his family with an everlasting nightmare.

Ben’s mother, Shaneisha Robinson said her son would tell her daily that all he wanted to do was make her proud.

Digging through a box of Ben’s football and track awards, Robinson said she is proud, but even more heartbroken.

“I’m just trying to go minute by minute,” she said as the week anniversary of her son’s death approaches.

Redix was shot and killed on May 18 in what police are calling an accidental shooting by 17-year-old Jamari Douglas in North Little Rock.

“I know he is going to a better place, so I am content with it,” Ben’s father Ben Redix Sr. said.

The family said Redix had attended Star City High School’s graduation on the night he was killed. The next day, he would’ve received his diploma.

“It was a very sad occasion not seeing him get his own diploma,” Redix Sr. said.

Instead, Robinson did so in his honor.

“I thought I was going to pass out sitting there but I could just hear Benjamen saying ‘Mama you’re a strong woman,’ so I did it for my son,” Robinson said.

On the night of the tragedy, Robinson said she got a call from someone who was there when Ben was shot. At the scene, she said she didn’t see her son and still hasn’t nearly a week later.

“I didn’t want to see him covered with the white sheet. I was just waiting until they dressed him for the funeral,” Robinson said.

The family said Redix’s funeral will be held Saturday at New Saint Hurricane Baptist Church in Pine Bluff.

By graduating, winning state in track and field and making electrifying plays on the football field that led to a scholarship to play for Southern Arkansas University, Ben accomplished his main goal of making his family proud.

“He went out a champion.”