Hyun Jung Grant, 51, toiled at Atlanta’s Gold Spa to keep food on the table for her two sons. But the single mother still made time for best-friend duties, including listening to their “girl problems.”

Xiaojie Tan worked 12-hour shifts daily so her family could live a better life than she did. During the long hours she spent at Young’s Asian Massage, the 49-year-old kept a running list of cities and continents she’d hoped to visit once she retired.

The matriarchs, whose love for their families were at the center of everything they did, were among the eight people—including six Asian women—killed Tuesday by a gunman targeting spas in the Atlanta area. The attacks came after a year of rising anti-Asian violence and racism. But to their families, they were more than their ethnicities, their jobs and the way they died.

Grant “dedicated her whole life” to being a good mother, according to her oldest son, Randy Park. “She was one of my best friends and the strongest influence on who we are today,” Park, 23, wrote on a GoFundMe page, which has raised more than $1 million in less than a day.

Park’s mother immigrated to the U.S. from South Korea, where she taught in an elementary school. In Duluth, Ga., the three only had each other. Now, Park has become the sole caretaker of his younger brother and is left to figure out funeral expenses alone. “This is something that should never happen to anyone,” he wrote on GoFundMe. “Losing her has put a new lens on my eyes on the amount of hate that exists in our world.”

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Park says his mother loved dancing, partying and often invited her sons to join in on the revelry. “I could tell her anything,” Park said. “If I had girl problems or whatever. She wasn’t just my mother. She was my friend.”