I did not know Jacqueline Montanaro, Supervisory U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer at Newark Airport. I shall never have the chance to make her acquaintance. On Friday night, a fire ripped through the Montanaro home in Hazlet, New Jersey. Jacqueline, her husband William, and their eight-year-old daughter Elena, the older of their two girls, made it out safely. However, when neither mom nor dad saw six-year-old Madelyn, their baby, outside, each went back into the home looking for her.
Jacqueline and William re-entered the home separately in a desperate effort to rescue Madelyn. William, overwhelmed by thick black smoke, made it back outside. Jacqueline did not. William described what his wife did, "Without hesitation, Jackie then charged in with a mother's love and the courage of a police officer fueling her attempt to save our daughter."
Jacqueline Montanaro died as she lived - risking her own life for someone and something she prized more than her own safety. She was a hero and a mother. She shall forever be so. Young Madelyn shall never have the chance to grow old, which is incomprehensibly sad and incalculably unfair. Yet, she shall spend eternity in the protective embrace of her mother and engrained in the heart and soul of the father and big sister who shall forever love her.
A Go Fund Me page has been set up by Jackie Montanaro's colleagues at CBP for the Montanaro family. The link to it is here.
-AK
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