‘We lost everything’: San Antonio mom loses daughter’s urn, home in devastating fire
On Monday, June 29, a family’s worst nightmare came true after a massive fire destroyed everything they own, including an irreplaceable urn filled with a loved one’s ashes.
Kassandra De Luna tells MySA she and her family were in bed just after midnight when they started to smell smoke in their apartment off Babcock Road. As soon as she looked out the window, De Luna says she saw the red flames and quickly ran out of their home with her four children.
De Luna says the father of her kids didn’t leave the apartment with them, staying behind to grab their daughter’s urn. However, the smoke clouded his sight, making it difficult to find the only item they have left of their daughter Corrin. De Luna delivered her on March 6, 2018, and later cremated her ashes.
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The 27-year-old mother of four (ages 1, 5, 6, 9) says she screamed and pleaded for her partner to get out of the apartment. He ended up crawling and feeling his way to the door without the urn or any belongings.
Fire officials don’t know what caused the two-alarm fire, according to a report from the San Antonio Express-News. No one was injured, but eight units were destroyed, leaving 12 adults and 12 children in need of shelter.
“We waited outside and just watched it burn,” De Luna says. “My kids were so terrified and were crying all night. It was very hard to calm them down. It was so traumatic for them.”
De Luna says they stayed with their family that evening and the apartment complex moved them into another building. However, she says the fire destroyed their clothes, shoes, couches, beds, wallets, and daughter’s urn.
“We lost everything. We are upset that we lost a lot and have to start all over again, but we’re mostly heartbroken that our daughter’s urn is lost. That was all we had of her,” she says.
In desperation, De Luna created a GoFundMe page to help them get back on their feet.
