Jackie Pham Nguyen and her three children, Olivia (11), Edison (8) and Colette (5), lovingly nicknamed her family Coco, and still had power and were happy to have more time with their Ba Ngoai , which means maternal grandmother in Vietnamese.
“We thought we were really happy because we still have power until the early evening,” Nguyen said.
When their power disappeared a few hours later, the family struggled, lit the fireplace and played board games and card games, she said.
The children tried to teach their grandmother some card games and the family exhausted themselves around 9:30 p.m.
“Got my kids in bed and really the next thing I know I’m in the hospital,” Nguyen told CNN. “A few hours later, the firefighter and police officer came and said that no one else was doing it.”
The cause of the fire may never be known
Nguyen does not remember what happened, she said, but remembers that she was on her first floor where her bedroom was and that she could not get to the top of the children’s bedrooms. She shouted at her children.
“I just stood there screaming and screaming and shouting their names and hoping they would come out of their rooms and basically jump so we could get out,” she said. “I can only remember feeling that it was so dark and I could still hear everything crackling around me.”
While Nguyen does not remember much of the night, Doug Adolph, a Sugar Land spokesman, told CNN the mother of three had to be “physically restrained from running into the house.”
He said it takes an hour or longer to get the fire completely under control. The fire department arrived Tuesday around 2 p.m.
“The family posted on social media that they were trying to stay warm by using a fireplace in the house,” Adolph said, adding that the cause of the fire has not yet been determined and may never be.
“We can not say with certainty it was the cause of the fire. We just do not know yet,” he explained. “It is possible that the investigation can never identify an exact cause.”
Adolph said the area was without power for at least eight hours.
While Nguyen sustained burns to her hands, she says the loss of her children and her mother is immeasurable.
“My heart is broken,” she says, pausing to catch her mind. “I will never be the same again.”
“I’m in this critical tactical mode right now and am just really focused on all these final arrangements because that’s the last thing I’m going to do for my kids,” Nguyen said.
‘Incredible little people’
When Nguyen talks about her children, her stories about their great personalities come to life in small bodies.
“My kids were such phenomenal, amazing little people,” she said of her three children.
Olivia and Coco would celebrate rugby themselves on 27 and 28 March next month. All three children have St. Laurence Catholic attended.
“Colette is just a small fire and she has so much charisma,” Nguyen said. “She also had that confidence as a five-year-old. She was never scared, totally irreconcilable and not intimidated.”
Coco loved to dance and make TikTok videos. She loved Taylor Swift and Shawn Mendes, and wanted to be head cheerleader and class president. She looked more like a teenager than a soon-to-be six-year-old.
She was also very loving. ‘I knew she was my last child, but … she was just so loving and I just, you know, I recorded it every moment I could get because I knew … those moments are so fleeting, ‘Nguyen said.
Olivia has a sarcastic sense of humor that got drier as she entered high school.
“She was a child, but not. She was so mature and outperformed her peers,” Nguyen said of her eldest.
She loved skiing and has been traveling with her mother every year since she was seven. Every year Olivia and her mother baked cinnamon rolls for Santa with the idea that he had enough cookies at the other houses and that they would remember their household because of their treats.
The middle child and only son, Edison (8), was a ‘sweet boy’ and an artist. He was very interested in modern art and architecture.
“He just had a very deep appreciation for any visual aesthetics,” Nguyen said. “So friendly and so caring and so considerate … you would not think an eight-year-old has that depth.”
Edison was slightly autistic and was very active, Nguyen told CNN, adding that he started running with his mother last year.
“You just spent a moment with him, you just knew how hot he was and that everything came from a friendly place.”
The grandmother who gave everything
Their grandmother, Le, always looked after them, dropped them off and picked them up at school and activities, to help Nguyen achieve her professional goals of working in finance.
A refugee from Vietnam, Le, arrived in Kansas with nothing, and Nguyen admits to her mother that she sacrificed to give her a better life.
“My parents did everything for their children, like immigrants, and to come to this country and that love they gave me, it was tenfold when it came to the grandchildren,” Nguyen said.
She added: “I think grandmothers are unsung heroes and untold stories.”
Nguyen’s mother has never spent the night at her home, and not even driven out Hurricane Harvey in her own home. But, she said, “for some reason she decided that day to come over.”
“I just feel like she’s always let the kids down, so that was maybe her last thing, and you know the kids ‘went to heaven,'” Nguyen said.
Honor the children
Knowing that these questions can never be answered, Nguyen said she will continue in a way that appropriately honors her children and their memory.
“It’s clear I’m mourning the loss of them,” Nguyen told CNN. “But I feel that it is honestly a tragic loss to the world that these children do not like to live out their potential and thus make a contribution to society.”
“I want to do something lasting for them,” Nguyen said. “I really want to be considerate about it, because I want it to be lasting and meaningful … I owe it to everyone’s support and their intentions not to be in a hurry about how these resources are used.”