NEW YORK (AP) — Lily, her firstborn, was her "angel," her "life." Sarah was her "little whippersnapper, loved and lovable and full of love." While her twin, Grace, "fearless," often asked her mother if she was going to die before her.

Madonna Badger told her daughter it was "never going to happen."

"But it did, and I wonder why," she said during a eulogy to her "girl tribe" in New York City on Thursday. "Why my children?"

The three young girls died along with Badger's parents during a Christmas morning fire at their Connecticut home. More than 500 mourners joined the grieving mother at St. Thomas Church in Manhattan for a somber funeral.