Mourners packed a Hamilton, Ont. funeral home Wednesday as a 22-year-old mother was laid to rest with her three young daughters in a single coffin.
The funeral home located in the Waterdown community of Hamilton was crowded with people who gathered to remember Melissa Denhollander and her children, Emma, 4, Ella, 2, and Alana, 1.
The family was killed in an early Saturday morning fire that ravaged their Hamilton home.
A 19-year-old tenant also died in the blaze.
Denhollander's 28-year-old fianc�, Richard Griffin and a 20-year-old female tenant survived the fire. Griffin remains at Hamilton General Hospital where he is being treated for smoke inhalation and burns.
Outside the funeral home Wednesday morning, mourners tried to comfort each other through their tears with warm embraces.
Denhollander's mother Patti Dixon said her daughter would want to be buried with her daughters which is why the family was placed next to each other in a single coffin.
"She was a good mother, this shouldn't have happened," Dixon said in a tearful interview with CTV Toronto on Sunday.
"You feel as if a part of your body has been taken away, you're not whole anymore," she said through her tears. "To take one thing away from you, but to take four ... four innocent people."
