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Matthew and Madonna Badger embrace as the casket of one of their three daughters arrives for funeral services on Thursday in New York City.
By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news service reports
The mother?of three young daughters who perished in a devastating Christmas morning blaze urged hundreds of mourners Thursday to commit "pure acts of kindness" in tribute to her children.
"I want to remember my girls out loud," Madonna Badger said, adding that the way to keep their memory alive was through love.
Hundreds of people?gathered?for the funeral in Manhattan Thursday to remember 9-year-old Lily Badger and 7-year-old twins, Sarah and Grace Badger. The sisters were killed along with their grandparents in?the family's Stamford, Conn., home.???
More than 800 people crowded inside St. Thomas Episcopal Church for the service "in thanksgiving for the lives".?Authorities shut down three lanes of Fifth Avenue on the church's block in honor of the girls.
Badger said that she always used to wonder what a parent would do if?her children died first. She said she couldn't imagine going on to live. "But here I am," she told the crowd.
She also said that her daughter Lily wondered how she would die, and that she'd told her daughter she didn't know because, "life is a mystery." And she said daughter Grace worried "a thousand times" that she would die before her mom.
Her mother reassured her that would never happen.
Read complete coverage at NBCConnecticut.com
Santa Claus
St. Thomas Episcopal Church was less than a five-minute walk from the department store Saks Fifth Avenue, where the children's grandfather, Lomer Johnson, played Santa Claus in the days before the fire.
Johnson and his wife Pauline perished in the Christmas morning blaze along with their grandchildren. A private service will be held for them and the girls later at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Badger, and her friend Michael Borcina were the only survivors of the fire, which was attributed to a bag of smoldering ash and embers left in a first-floor mudroom.
Officials told The Associated Press Tuesday the girls wanted the ash out of the fireplace so that?Santa Claus could come through the chimney.?
All died of smoke inhalation. Lomer Johnson also suffered?blunt head and neck trauma, which resulted from a fall or being hit by an object. ??? ?
One of the girls, found dead just inside a window, had been placed on a pile of books, apparently so Johnson could reach in and grab her after he jumped out. Instead, authorities say, he fell through the roof. ??? ?
Stamford police were helping fire officials investigate the blaze. Police said Monday officials want to know if there were smoke alarms, the status of renovation work in the house and whether the contractor had permits. ??? ?
The issue of permits could figure in the investigation because the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection has said that neither Borcina nor his company, Tiberias Construction Inc., was registered to perform home improvement work in Connecticut.
A foundation has been developed in the girls' honor, called The Other 364 Foundation, "whose mission is to champion compassion every day of the year," according to a?statement on badgerandwinters.com.
Checks may be made out to:
The Other 364 Foundation
c/o Badger &?Winters Group
135 Fifth Avenue 3rd Floor
New York, NY?10010
Notes may be sent to love@badgerfamilysupport.com.
WNBC's Andrew Siff, NBCConnecticut.com and msnbc.com's Sevil Omer contributed to this report, as did The Associated Press.
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