Nicole Rose was out of town in Orlando when she got the phone call that would change her life.

Her older sister Sasha had suddenly fallen ill. She was unconscious in the hospital.

Nicole rushed back to West Palm Beach. Sasha, a mother of five, had suffered a massive brain aneurysm. She was on life support and doctors said there was no chance of survival.

Although she was in a coma, Nicole believes Sasha may have been able to hear her speaking at her bedside.

“I told my sister that she didn’t have to worry about her kids,” Nicole said. “We would take care of them.”

Sasha’s death in August of 2021 came as a shock to her friends and family. She was only 40 and in good health. “She was probably the healthiest one in our entire family,” Nicole said.

Two weeks later, still reeling from her sister’s death, Nicole lost her best friend to liver disease.

“It was hard to have two people so close to me pass in such a short time,” she said. “But I felt I needed to be strong for the children.”

Nicole, who works for Brightline at the train service’s West Palm Beach station, did her best to get on with her life. She took in two of her sister’s daughters, caring for them alongside her son.

But less than six months later, tragedy struck a third time.

As Nicole was driving home from work, she saw fire trucks on her street in the Pinewood Park neighborhood of West Palm Beach.

As she got closer, she realized it was her home that was on fire. Smoke was pouring out of the building. Her first thoughts went to her son. Only six at the time, he sometimes arrived home from school a bit before she got home from work. Could he be in the house?

Nicole was swept by relief to find him in the street amid the chaos of the firefighters.

“I was scared that he was in the house and he was panicking because he thought I might be in the house,” she said. Luckily, her two nieces also were not home.

But the family’s two dogs were trapped inside. Firefighters could not save them. Both perished in the fire.

“I was thankful that my son and nieces were OK, but we lost everything, our dogs, our clothes, all our possessions,” she said.

All they were left with were the clothes on their backs.

Nicole lost perhaps her most precious keepsake. “My sister had long braids in her hair,” she said. “Before we put her to rest, I took one. It was lost in the fire.”

After the fire, the family moved in with Nicole’s grandmother. The house was crowded and needed repairs, but Nicole was thankful to have a roof over her head.

Once again, she set off with her characteristic determination to make things better for her family. Nicole got a promotion to a supervisory position at Brightline. And she was approved to purchase a home through Habitat for Humanity of Greater Palm Beach County.

Nicole’s house was one of three built during Habitat’s annual Women Build event in March of 2026. The family’s four-bedroom home is expected to be completed later this year.

“This means a lot because we were starting from scratch,” she said. “We had nothing.”

What makes it even more meaningful is the fact that women from all over Palm Beach County came together to support her and help build her house.

To find out more about Women Build, CLICK HERE.

“It’s empowering seeing all these women here. They could have been doing anything today,” she said, looking around the job site during Women Build. “They could have been home resting. They could have been at work. Instead, they took time to come here and support this cause.

“It means so much to me.”

The sisterhood of support also extends to her new neighbors. During construction, Nicole has become close to the two women who are purchasing adjacent Habitat homes, Victorious Hawthorne-Charles and Carla Hamilton.

“We’ve already said to each other that we’ll watch out for each other’s kids,” Nicole said. “We’ll make sure each other’s houses are OK when someone is away.

“If I need to borrow a cup of sugar, I know I can go right over to Victorious.”

Her nieces and son are thrilled about their new home. “They already have picked out their bedroom sets and the paint colors for their rooms,” Nicole said.

Nicole is looking forward to celebrating the holidays in her own place this year. “For me, that’s a really big part of having a home, setting up for Thanksgiving and Christmas and having family over,” she said.

“Home” means different things to different people. For Nicole, it means much more than simply having a place to live.

Her new house demonstrates that she has kept her promise to her sister. And it shows that her life is being defined not by the tragedies she has endured but by her triumph over them.

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Written by Steve Plamann, a dedicated Habitat for Humanity volunteer.