BROOKINGS — When it comes to life’s unexpected disruptions, it doesn’t get much worse than a home-destroying blaze, but that’s exactly what Brookings resident Yasmin Navarro and her family are coping with right now as they thread the needle between mourning lost pets and being thankful that there were no injuries or deaths.
“We are struggling a little bit, but because of the community that we have — and them stepping forward — it hasn’t made me lose myself,” Navarro told The Brookings Register. “Things are things. People are people. At least I have my family together.”
She was working at Peaceful Pines Senior Living when her wife Marelyn Rivera called with the news on March 29. Navarro rushed home to 824 Eighth St., where officers with the Brookings Police Department let her know the family’s pets — a 2-year-old dog, Tropper; and a 1-year-old cat, Timothy — didn’t make it.
“The only thing that I wanted to do when I got there was jump inside one of the windows — you know, save my dog, my dog’s in there! My cat’s in there! My turtles are in there!” Navarro said. “That’s the only thing I was thinking.”
In an early sign of the community support to come, Navarro’s neighbors, Chuck and Bev Smith, were already there to help, and kept her from going into the burning home.
“It’s sad, but I have my family — I have my family, I have my mom with me, I have my wife, my children with me. It could have been worse,” Navarro sobbed. “Thank God it did not get worse.”
Forever loved
It’s hard for Navarro to handle the loss of the family’s pets, even more so when she flips through old photos of Tropper, Timothy and the now-lost home on her phone. Pets, after all, are oftentimes called fur babies for a reason: They’re cherished family members.
“Tropper used to call me mom, momma,” Navarro recalled, laughing a bit through her tears. “My wife never believed me about that, but, yes. She got to hear it before the incident. He was a protective dog.”
Navarro described Timothy as a toy-loving feline who enjoyed playing, and who could also be mischievous around the children. She said Timothy was always good with her.
“We would always buy these little balls for him to play all over the house,” Navarro said.
Navarro related a story about Tropper and one of her sons when he was younger, saying the boy used to try and leave the house and go outside near the street. Tropper, however, wouldn’t let him get that far.
“He would always save our baby from touching the streets or anything. He would push our baby to the ramp and bark at us until we would catch the baby in the act,” she said, adding that the house was later refitted to keep their little would-be escape artist safe within it.
Navarro described Tropper — who the family got from the Sioux Falls Area Humane Society — as a puppy, one who loved to be with her every time he was out of the kennel.
“He was a good dog — he was a really good dog,” she reminisced.
While Tropper and Timothy died — “the firefighters … let me say bye” — the family’s pet turtles made it through alive and well, something that adds a bit of a silver lining to the loss.
“With all the smoke in their tank and everything, the turtles did make it; they did survive,” Navarro said.
Everything for family
Her memories of the family’s lost home, where they’d lived for five years, ran deep.
“That was our second house, where our children really started to grow up,” Navarro said. “… My 16-year-old had his diploma on the wall — it got burned.”
Just days before the fire upended their lives, she took the children — 6-year-old son Brighton Nettles, 10-year-old daughter Aryana Nettles and 16-year-old Yequiel Navarro — to Sioux Falls to buy clothes and shoes and to treat them to a fun time at Thunder Road.
“I will bust my body off to give my family everything that they need,” Navarro vowed. “I do not know what a pair of Nikes, or Reeboks, or something like that on my feet would look like, but my children had it all. My children, my spouse, had it all.”
She said her 82-year-old mother — Perfecta Medina Cotto — lived with the family, too, and that she’d purchased a lot of stuff for her, too, just before the fire.
“That’s the queen of the house — she’s amazing,” Navarro said, adding that her mother is a whiz when it comes to keeping up with the family’s laundry needs and, oh, watching television as well.
Children, community praise
As devastating as a fire is on adults, it can’t be forgotten that children can be affected as well — and not only by the fire itself, but how adults react to and handle the situation.
“They were worried, but it’s like I told my children: It’s not their job to worry, it’s my job. Their job is to be a child,” Navarro said. “Thanks to the people that I rented (from) and the community of Brookings, I can say that, even though we do have this … difficult situation, it has been less difficult with the help of Brookings Rents.”
She said the property management company has paid for the family’s hotel stay in Brookings and is also aiding in finding another home to live in — perhaps as soon as next week if all goes well.
Navarro continued lavishing praise: “The community of Brookings, with them donating shoes and clothes and personal things — the children see that they’re receiving from the community … and seeing so many people helping us, they are happy.
“I won’t say that they weren’t worried, but I think that going to school — having their friends hug them and play with them and talk to them — is something that will help them keep this situation out of their minds,” she said.
Navarro said one example of that generosity was when she picked up her children from Hillcrest Elementary School, and was given gift cards for food and clothing, along with some money.
“I can tell you that every single person and every single thing that we have received has made a difference,” she said. “When you’re in a situation like we are right now … everything that you receive makes you feel better, makes you feel more safe, a little bit more stable. … It makes a huge difference, no matter what it is.”
Navarro again spoke warmly of neighbors Chuck and Bev Smith, whose help has included saving one of the family’s vehicles from the blaze, setting up a stop-drop in a shed for people to leave donations for the family, and assisting in salvaging shoes, clothing, a TV, a PlayStation and other items from the basement of the fire-ravaged house.
The family is also receiving help from the Red Cross and is in communication with The Salvation Army as well. Throw in spiritual support from Mount Calvary Lutheran Church and in-house efforts by Peaceful Pines and pretty soon you’ve got, well, a community standing with the family.
It’s actions like that which have cemented a lasting impression with Navarro, and further spur her to march ever onward, stalwart and strong no matter life’s headwinds.
“Since I came to Brookings, I have worked not only on myself — because I like to show my children that they can be better … that there’s not ‘I’m the best,’ no, you can be better, not better than people or less than people, but always better,” Navarro said.
“I try to show them that family comes first — and not only family, family can be anybody, just to be the best of themselves.”
— Contact Mondell Keck at [email protected].
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