CARPENTERSVILLE, Ill. (WLS) – A mother is in mourning after a house fire took the lives of her three young sons on Sunday.
Josephine Beauchane described her final moments with her 1-year-old, Xander, and twin 2-year-olds, Kayden and Jayden.
“Don’t leave without saying goodbye because you won’t know if it’s your last time,” Beauchane said.
Hearing a child come into the world is one of the most beautiful moments in a parent’s life, but the silence of losing a child is deafening.
“I felt his heart stop. I watched as he took his last breath, and had to sit there and listen as the doctors told me they wouldn’t be able to save him anymore,” Beauchane said.
Beauchane held her 2-year-old son Kayden for the last time Sunday night. Her 1-year-old, Xander, and Kayden’s twin brother, Jayden, died in a house fire earlier that morning.
“They were crying for mama and trying to find out where mama was, and mama was racing over here to find out if they were OK,” Beauchane added.
Carpentersville public safety officials say the fire that broke out in the basement of the boys’ grandmother’s home on Sunday morning was so powerful, it was engulfed with the three trapped inside by the time firefighters arrived.
Their grandmother was trying everything in her power to save them, relatives say.
“She tried so hard to save those kids. She kept running into the house trying to find those children. She could not find them,” great-grandmother Christina Castillo said. “The smoke was too strong.”
The grandmother is expected to survive, but now without a place to return to and without the three boys who made the place feel like home.
“These were my kids, my life, my story, and now they’re gone,” Beauchane added.
The names of Xander, Jayden and Kayden were written all over a growing memorial. Dozens of supporters showed up to stand in their place and show the family they are not alone and they are loved.
“I just want them to be remembered as the kids who brought everybody together and loved everybody as who they were,” Beauchane said.
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