The grieving mother of twin girls who perished in a horrific house fire has revealed she suffered 15 miscarriages before falling pregnant with them.
Aisha and Lailani, three, were laid to rest at Tumut Lawn Cemetery in the Snowy Mountains on Friday morning.
The identical twins’ young lives were tragically cut short when their Batlow home caught on fire on May 18 while their mother Tanyka Ford, 29, and brother Dominick, five, were locked outside.
Aisha and Lailani, three, were laid to rest at Tumut Lawn Cemetery in the Snowy Mountains on Friday morning
Tanyka Ford clutched peonies as she sang them one last lullaby, Sarah McLachlan’s Arms Of An Angel, as her daughters were laid to rest in a pink double casket
Their grief-stricken mother clutched peonies as she sang them one last lullaby, Sarah McLachlan’s Arms Of An Angel, her voice cracking with emotion, as her daughters were laid to rest in a pink double casket.
‘They loved it when I sang to them, the last thing I can do for them is sing them one last lullaby,’ she told Daily Telegraph.
Ms Ford continues to struggle to come to terms with the harrowing events of May 18
Speaking publicly for the first time after the horror accident, Ms Ford revealed that she suffered 15 miscarriages before falling pregnant with her ‘miracle babies’.
‘I was told I could never medically carry,’ she said.
‘Unless you’ve been a mother of twins you cannot describe what it’s like to have two babies kicking away in your stomach at the same time.’
An investigation revealed the girls’ had removed a protective grill from the wood fireplace and set light to highly inflammable material in the family home.
The twins had also deadbolted the front door when Ms Ford stepped outside to throw away a pillow which caught alight from a log fire in the front room.
Screaming, she tried to break into the house but the ferocity of the fire had bolted the entrances shut.
Emergency services arrived and eventually forced their way inside the home, but it was too late to save Aisha and Lailani.
The sisters, who reportedly died from smoke inhalation, were found unconscious and holding hands in the front room.
The sisters, who reportedly died from smoke inhalation, were found unconscious and holding hands in the front room
Fire investigators and forensic services at the scene of a house fire, where three year old twins died in the town of Batlow, 440km south west of Sydney
‘I’ve got the scars from when I had them, scars from trying to save them,’ Ms Ford said.
Ms Ford constantly questions what else she could have done to save her daughters before they were ‘ripped away from me in minutes’.
She said she was living a nightmare that you try to make sense of but just can’t figure out as she remembers their smiles, clothes and giggles which keep her up at all times.
Ms Ford’s six-year-old son Dominick, broke down in tears as he scattered petals over his sisters’ lowered coffin, with relatives gathering to offer comfort.
She now fears how this will impact him and hopes that in time with counselling he will eventually get better.
The girls’ uncle Wayne Dubois said he could never make sense of the event that cruelly ripped them away.
Mourners gathered to farewell the twins, wearing pink in honour of their favourite colour.
‘They brought so much love into the world, two, beautiful, adventurous little girls; they were mum’s angels and dad’s spoiled little brats,’ celebrant Chris Longhurst told mourners, The Daily Telegraph reports.
‘You were growing as a family, and an extended family, this is a heart wrenching time in your lives.’
The girls’ uncle Wayne Dubois said he could never make sense of the event that cruelly ripped them away.
‘I can never understand … you were my world, your smiles, so sweet and tender, your lives were so short, now all that’s left are black and white memories, my little ones, you will never understand how much you meant to us, may you shine among the brightest stars,’ he said.
The girls’ father Geoffrey Dubois, 28, told his daughters they were the light of his life and would have no idea how much he would miss them.
‘My life will never be the same without you, you will be the best angels god has ever received, I will miss you so deeply,’ he said, in a eulogy read by the celebrant.
Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven played as mourners paid their last respects, releasing pink balloons bearing the word princess into the sky.
Fire investigators and forensic services at the scene of a house fire, where three-year-old twins died in the town of Batlow, 440km south west of Sydney