Family mourns, celebrates lives of young brothers who died in tragic Christmas Day fire
Click here to access the story on the Detroit Free Press’ website.
As morning sunlight pushed through the stained glass window in Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit, family members cried and came together to celebrate the lives of 7-year-old De'Lon Wheeler and 6-year-old Damarion Wheeler on Thursday.
It's a parent's worst nightmare.
On Christmas Day, a fire engulfed Demika Pinson's Helen Street house, near Eight Mile Road and Van Dyke Avenue, claiming the lives of her two young boys.
What was supposed to be a joyous holiday transformed into a day of despair.
Pinson woke up on that morning to her home cloaked in smoke and consumed by flames. In a moment of survival, she took her 2-year-old daughter and jumped out the second-story window, she told the Detroit News.
As she saw her other two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy, make it out of the house, Pinson noticed De'Lon and Damarion weren't with them.
After realizing this, Pinson started shattering the front windows to save her two boys.
She sliced her hands and fingers trying to get her children out of the house. As the fire grew bigger and started to swallow the front of the house, Pinson screamed out for her children.
"Picture yourself calling your children's names, trying to get your hands in there and there's nothing you can do because the fire is so bad that you can't get your children out," Pinson's sister Dominique Bibbs, 30, said during the funeral service.
The two-story home didn't have working central heat. Several space heaters were used at the home, said Detroit Deputy Fire Commissioner Dave Fornell. The house had no working fire detectors.
At Hartford Memorial Baptist Church on Thursday, mourners sobbed and cried out as the small caskets, containing De'Lon and Damarion, were being wheeled into hearses.
Their mother, Pinson, said the boys taught her how to love and be courageous.
"They taught me how to fight no matter what," Pinson said while trying to hold back tears.
Michael Massey, 29, is De'Lon's father. He spent a great deal of time standing over his son's casket, embracing his other family members and sharing the collective feeling of loss.
Massey said the boys meant everything to him and being a father is the best gift in life.
"They (De'Lon and Damarion) taught me how to be a great person and how to take care of somebody," he said. "The best memory I had with my baby is every moment of his life. That's the best memory."
Darius Wheeler, Damarion's dad, said the boys gave his life meaning, and they'll forever be his inspiration.
"They say a father is suppose to guide and protect his children. But somehow, I feel that you've always been the ones protecting me," Wheeler said in the funeral "You believed in me when no one else did and loved me like no one else could."
De'Lon and Damarion were like two peas in a pod. Their aunt, Bibbs, said they were the sweetest boys in the world.
"Damarion would just stare at you and smile, and De'Lon had so much swag," she said. "They were just the sweetest little kids. My sister's kids (and) their bond as children was so great. They just loved each other, and they helped each other."
Pinson said in the funeral program that Damarion was "rapping better than you could say a sentence," and De'Lon loved to dress well — even as a 7-year-old.
"Heaven gained two wonderful boys and left me here baffled," Pinson writes in the funeral program. "It's hard to deal. The pain behind this is deep and doesn't seem real. Forever in my heart, no time soon will this wound heal."
To donate to the family's GoFundMe, click here.
Staff writer Omar Abdel-Baqui contributed to this report.
Contact Slone Terranella at STerranella@freepress.com and follow her on Twitter @SloneTerranella.
Support local journalism here.