Mom Recalls Her 'Girl Tribe' Lost in Fire

The Connecticut ad executive who lost her three daughters in a Christmas morning fire delivered the eulogy herself today at a packed New York funeral, reports DNA Info. “They were my little girl tribe," said Madonna Badger of Lily, 9, and twins Grace and Sarah, 7. “My little girls are not gone from us entirely because my little girls are in my heart. Right here. And this is where they live,” she said, according to the Daily News.

Badger's parents also died in the fire. She escaped, along with a friend, Michael Borcina, who accompanied her to the funeral along with the girls' father, Matthew Badger. “Gracie asked a thousand times if she was going to die before me,” said Madonna Badger. “I said, ‘No. That's never going to happen.' But it did, and I wonder why. Why my children? Why my parents?” Among the attendees were actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, musician Lou Reed, and designers Calvin Klein and Vera Wang. Click for more. (More Madonna Badger stories.)