A Christmas Day’s tragedy and blessing
I brought home a baby on Christmas Eve in 2011.
He was born just before Halloween and we met him Dec. 1 as my wife and I adopted him. But instead of counting down to his first Christmas, we were crossing out days until he would be released from a NICU in San Antonio, where he trembled in our arms while recovering from a rough entry into the world. He learned before most that life can be merciless.
Suzanna Feliciano, a magical nurse, made daily predictions that he would recover enough to get his discharge papers in time for the holiday. She would be proven right (and doctors wrong) about his resilience. She and The Kid remain in touch, most recently sounding like any two Texans swapping tales about horses.
The world stops when you spend a month in a NICU. Navigating our way back home Dec. 24 was a twirling blur of the monochrome hospital and the Technicolor of Oz. When we landed home in Stamford, we didn’t tell anybody we were back, save for a few friends who stopped by with gifts and much-appreciated prepared meals.
I could tell you so many details of those hours of wonder. But a decade later my thoughts keep straying to the unimaginable tragedy that was unfolding just a few miles away.
Christmas Day 2011 was when Madonna Badger’s three young daughters, along with her parents, were killed in an overnight fire in their home in the Shippan section of Stamford.
It sent me back to work as the Stamford Advocate’s managing editor. When I talked to reporter Kate King, who was at the scene, I recognized immediately where it occurred. Four months earlier, I had driven to the tip of Shippan in search of people who couldn’t resist watching Hurricane Irene’s wrath over Long Island Sound from the other side of the retaining wall.
My baseball cap was whipped off my head as soon as I opened my car door. I took photos of a man with a chainsaw cutting up a tree that had fallen onto his home, all as the storm danced around him. Then I ran up a neighboring driveway to retrieve my cap. It was the Badger property, leading to the house that was being renovated that summer.
On Christmas morning the house was surrounded by firefighters and the horror that 9-yearold Lily and 7-year-old twins Sarah and Grace and their grandparents, Lomer and Pauline Johnson, could not be saved.
City officials made the appalling decision to tear down the remnants of the 116-year Victorian the following day. The City of Stamford eventually paid millions in lawsuits accusing it of covering up inadequate inspections. Even more damning was that Stamford leaders resisted letting the state take over. I prefer to think the officials who made the call were in shock themselves. Either way, any hope of a proper investigation was lost in the ashes.
That didn’t stop journalists, or Madonna, from looking for answers. She appreciated the reporting, which resulted in a summit at her offices the following November with me and three colleagues: Kate, Angela Carella and Jon Lucas. Bands performing below in New York’s Veterans Day Parade served as a soundtrack, as Badger presented a slide show of her own probe.
She also agreed to share her story of recovery during the previous 11 months. Kate wrote an elegant narrative that was so deftly crafted my wife later used it to teach college students long-form journalism.
By the time we published the stories, on Christmas Day 2012, it revealed that Madonna sought refuge from December’s holiday reminders in Thailand. But even those 8,500 miles weren’t enough to stop the news from reaching her of the children killed in the Sandy Hook tragedy that Dec. 14. She offered solace to their parents on Facebook: “The most powerful words anyone said to me was ‘I LOVE YOU.’ And that was all I needed to hear. I love you all and pray for you all.”
It doesn’t take an anniversary to summon memories from that wretched Christmas. A friend, Tom Brown, was among the tortured firefighters. When I mention it’s been 10 years, he tells me he thinks about seeing the bodies of the grandfather and the girls every day. I offer a clumsy apology for bringing his thoughts back there again. Tom finds the right words to reassure me: “John, I also think about my younger days playing first base for my college baseball team.”
Yes, agony and bliss can co-exist. I will never forget the fire on Christmas Day in 2011, but will also always hug memories of our son coming home for the first time during those same hours.
Madonna told Kate “this bond that exists between a mother and each one of her children — that bond had basically been severed on Christmas morning.”
But I witnessed evidence of her ability to heal at the end of our meeting in her offices. As we waited for the elevator, she remarked on how Jon was struggling with a stubborn cold and needed to take care of himself. Jon revealed that he caught it from his 2-year-old daughter as a virus rippled through her day care.
Then, remarkably, Madonna Badger beamed and commented on the wonders of 2-year-olds.
She was a mom in that moment, always and forever a mom.