Metro

Transcript of Madonna Badger’s eulogy for tragic daughters

Thank you all for being here today. I want talk to you about my girls. My three little girls Lily, Sarah, and Grace Badger. And this is going to be really hard. Lily, Grace and Sarah are not here with us today, and they won’t be here tomorrow, and I am trying to come to terms with this, because I know that Matthew is, and I know that all of us are. But I feel very strongly, and the reason why I wanted to speak to you today is to let you know who my girls were. And that our girls, my little girls, are not gone from us entirely, because my girls are in my heart. They’re right here, and this is where they live now. And they live in Matthew’s heart, and they live in the hearts of all of you who knew them — and even those who didn’t know them. And I want you to remember my girls out loud to fight for them to never be forgotten. This is why I can stand before you today, because they were my little girls they were my little girl tribe, and I want you to hear about them from me.

So I’m going to tell you just the tiniest of snippets, little stories that are the smallest of drops in a ocean of memories. Because there were Christmases and Easters and Thanksgivings, and so many days of just seeing a girl tribe together, dancing and singing and playing and loving one another.

My Lily. Lily was my angel and my life and she was my first baby. When Lily was first born, I would put her in my Baby Bjorn and we would walk around New York City for hours, with diapers in my pocket and my breasts full of milk. And it was all we needed, and we’d walk the city. Lily sang before she spoke and she made up songs constantly. She made-up elaborate games with her Nana, and all of the little animals that she loved to play with; these animals all had names, and they all lived in very special kingdoms.

Lily loved to her Ricky and her Mister Wiggles and Lily loved her (inaudible) and her Jessica so very much. And most of all, Lily loved her sisters. They were her best friends, and she celebrated all of their unique qualities. And she never changed them, she never harmed them, and she always gave them love. Lily was naturally shy and her smile was sometimes hidden, but when she let her smile show it glowed completely. Lily was a natural born dancer, and when Lily danced –with moves that far outdid Michael Jackson–Lily was calm and confident and full of who Lily was. When she was first met you, she fought but once she determined that you were okay, you were 100-percent in with Lily forever.

When Lily and I went to the Met and we saw all the Pietas — because apparently we had made a wrong turn and all the Pietas were there –but anyway, when she saw the Pietas at the Met, when she was only 5, Lily broke down on the floor. And she begged me to tell her when she was going to die, and I told her — after a lot of not know what to say –that it is a mystery, it’s a total mystery, that we will never know when we will die. And she accepted that — and I will, too.

My darling, Sarah. Sarah is a spirited one, and her greatest joy in this life was to make you feel good and at ease and loved. If many of you know my parents, Nana and Papa were true givers. And one Christmas, my dad as his alter-ego Santa, in full regalia went to the village nursing home. My mother had made sugar cookies and put them in little bags, and everybody walked into the nursing home and it was scary and Lily was there, and Sarah and Gracie and Matthew. And it was Sarah who grabbed the little cookies and started handing them out to the very sick and very old people. And the entire room changed; it was full of ease and full of light. Sarah later said to my mom, “Nana, now somebody better tell the Tooth Fairy that this is where she needs to bring all the teeth, ’cause these people really need them.”

I had a fever once, and Sarah came and she sprayed my face with magic mist and she put a toy dog in my hand and she said,”Don’t worry Mama, these things are going to help you sleep and make you well. “ Sarah had a very fragile heart. It was hidden behind a lot of love and lot of smiles, and the smallest slight would cause such deep, deep damage that I swear you could see the tear right there in her heart.

Sarah like to lie with me at bedtime and hold my hand, and tell me how much she loved me.

Once her Nana said, “Sarah Badger, can you hear me?” And Sarah said, “Nana I can hear you. I’m just not listening.” Doctor Solar said that Sarah was the mayor of Windward [School] …recently, they had to call a special meeting at Windward .. Dr. Schwab had to call a meeting with a second grade girls so they could figure out a way of how they were going to take turns being close to Sarah. This was my Sarah, my Sarah. My little wippersnapper, , lovable and totally loved.

My Gracie. My best friend Jenni Muldaur once said that Grace was light in a previous life — and I think she was right. Grace was fearless, she was the first one to pick up the most creepiest, grossest bug you could possibly find and try to give it to me, because I hate creepy crawly things. Gracie was fearless. She was the first one on the trapeze on our last spring vacation, and she begged and begged to go on again and again. Gracie was in love with her sisters, and in awe of Lily. And Gracie always said, “Right Lily? Right? Isn’t that right?’

Sarah and Grace had a special language and a special bond. For instance, they called one another ‘RaRa’ when they were toddlers. It was the name that they had given one another, because it was the ‘Ra’ in both of their names that was only thing that was the same. And it took us a long time to really know if they knew the difference between which one was Grace and which was Sarah, ‘RaRa’ was confusing.

Grace loved math. She would do a problem that was like 10 numbers long, and she would add them and subtract them. And then she would make us all check her work. She was so proud of what she could accomplish with her numbers.

And one of Grace’s greatest thrills was when she got the ‘best listening’ position at Windward. Grace was a fisherman, an adventurer and an inventor, and her imagination was boundless. And there was nothing Grace Badger couldn’t make with a Band Aid. Band Aids were cake, and they were balls and they were wrapping paper, they were everything. Nobody loved Band Aids more than Gracie Badger.

And Gracie wanted to know everything. She wanted a microscope and a telescope for Christmas; I think she wanted to see the seen and the unseen. Grace was my child who could [not] have cared less if you liked her or approved of her — she found her own way, always. And when she loved you, she loved you completely. Grace’s tender kisses were always given when she wanted to give them, and her hugs were so full and so loving.

Grace asked me a thousand times if she was going to die before me. And I said,” No, Gracie, no. That is never going to happen.”

But it happened.

And people, everyone, including me, wonder ”Why? Why did this happen, and why my children, and why my parents and why now?”

But nothing will bring my babies back, or my parents, or the life I had or Matthew’s. And here’s the one thing that I know is not a mystery: That there is no power greater on this Earth than love. And that is what is going to keep Lily and Sarah and Grace with us forever.

In this, in all this incomprehensible loss and chaos, all I can hang on to is that love is everything. And God, as I choose to call my higher power, is love. And so, God is love and God is everything.

I have been asked a million times, ”How can you do this, how are you talking, how are you surviving?” Because when I used to hear about people losing a child, or if a child got very, very sick, I would say, “I could never survive that. I could never live through that, I could never, ever, ever live through losing my babies.”

But here I am. Here all of us are. Because Lily and Sarah and Grace live in my heart now, as do my parents, Lomer and Pauline. I was a daughter and a mother, and I still intend to be both, so I can make my girls proud and carry them forward in love. This love, I am realizing, is to be my children’s legacies because they left the world at such tender ages that all they left behind was love.

And I think and I pray and I hope that is all of our great responsibility — to spread that love. And for me, God does not call on us just to love because that is too easy. He also calls on us to be of service. Service to our friends, our families to those we know and those we don’t.

So the message I want to share today, on behalf of Lily and Sarah and Grace, is that we can talk all day long about love, but love with out service is not enough.

Please keep our little girls in your hearts by showing your love with acts of pure kindness, by loving each other and finding a way to help each other every day for Lily, for Sarah, and for Grace. This will is what will keep them alive forever. Thank you all for coming today and for all of your words and prayers and support. They have mean the world to me, they have meant the world to my family and to Matthew.