Elizabeth Seal was at home getting her children ready for bed when she heard from a friend that there had been a shooting at Schemengees Bar & Grille in Lewiston, Maine, where both their husbands had gone Wednesday night.

She immediately texted her husband, but received no response. So she went to a neighbors house, where people comforted one another as they waited for more information. That was where Elizabeth Seal learned that her husband, Joshua Seal, had been killed alongside his friends in the countrys deadliest mass shooting this year.

Four of the men who were killed at the bar on Wednesday night were members of a local deaf community in Maine: Joshua Seal, William Billy Brackett, Steve Vozzella and Bryan MacFarlane.

Close-knit was a common word used by locals to describe Maines entire deaf community. Dr. Karen Hopkins, executive director of The Maine Educational Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, said that many Deaf and hard-of-hearing adults and children in Maine grew up together, attending their Governor Baxter School for the Deaf on Mackworth Island and even living together in the schools dorms.

Our community is like a big family. We connect through a shared culture and shared language of American Sign Language, Hopkins told HuffPost in an email interview on Saturday. We have many gatherings and social events that bring our community together, many of which happen on Mackworth Island at the school for the Deaf, which many feel is the Deaf communitys home.

The four deaf men were among 18 killed in total during suspected gunman Robert Cards shooting spree, all of them from the local community, including a heroic bar manager, a bowling instructor and others. Other deaf people were injured but escaped during the shooting, according to The Washington Post . Locals have been left shaken by Wednesdays tragedy, especially those in Maines small, close-knit Deaf community.

Everyone knows somebody who was affected deeply, and were all here supporting each other, Elizabeth Seal told HuffPost in a phone interview on Saturday. Its a beautiful connection, but its also a tragic connection, so beautifully tragic that we can be together and share feelings with each other and grieve [with] each other in our own language and understand each other.

The four deaf men were killed while playing at their weekly cornhole tournament for deaf athletes at Schemengees on Wednesday.

The community here is very tight; they do everything together, Elizabeth Seal said. We are all suffering together. Were all grieving together.