LAKE CITY, Fla. – A Lake City family saddened by tragedy a little more than a year ago is now celebrating a happy occasion.
Just in time for Thanksgiving and the end of National Adoption Month, a Lake City woman has officially adopted her granddaughters.
The girls' mother, 24-year-old police Officer Brandi Jackson, died in a fire last year. She was sleeping in a colleague's guest bedroom when the home was engulfed in flames. Fire investigators said a smoldering cigarette started the fire.
The family's adoptions were finalized at the Columbia County Courthouse on Tuesday. Sharolyn Krieghauser adopted her granddaughters, 5-year-old Avah and 3-year-old Alivia, something Jackson asked her to do just a couple months before she died.
"When she was going through the academy, she said, 'Mom, I just want to ask you if something happens to me in the line of duty, I want you to raise my girls,'" Krieghauser said. "And I said, 'Brandi, you don't have to ask me that. You know I'll do it.' And I didn't think I'd be here doing it."
At one point when the fire broke out inside the house, Jackson's colleague was trying to lead her to safety, but the smoke was too much. When he realized she was no longer with him, it was too late to go back.
"I think about it every day, every single day, and I still can't believe it's happened," Krieghauser said. "She had her whole life ahead of her, her new career, raising these girls, and it was just taken away, just in an instant.
"I know nothing can bring my daughter back, but I can honor her and her memory by raising these girls."
And when she looks at them, she sees Jackson in the girls' eyes, smiles and attitudes.
"I will always have a piece of her," Krieghauser said. "I will always have her in them. And it brings me comfort knowing that I know she's here. Her spirit is here and is hugging us. Today she's here and she's saying, 'You go, Mom! I know you can do this.'
"Brandi will always be my whole world. Her and my son were the only two kids I had. And now I have four children."
When the family sits down at the table Thursday for Thanksgiving, Krieghauser said she has a couple of things to be truly thankful for -- her now-adopted grandchildren.