‘Enjoy the little things … ’

Jazmin Nazario recalls an affectionate life with her mother.

By Melissa Dribben

Inquirer Staff Writer

One in an occasional series on how families of slain police officers cope with the wrenching loss.

On the morning of Friday, Sept. 5, the year holds promise for Jazmin Nazario.

It is the third day of classes and she likes her teachers. She's the 10th-grade class representative on student council. She's made honor roll for as long as she can remember, plans to maintain her perfect record, and, in April, when she turns 16, she and her mom are going to the Caribbean. Aruba or Barbados.

She is as optimistic as any teenage girl can be.

The night before, she slept at her grandmother's house in North Philadelphia because her mother, Isabel, a police officer on the Narcotics Strike Force, had to work the night shift. After school, Jazmin waits outside. Her mother pulls up in their red Ford Escape. Her grandmother Pat Santiago has come along. Pat is retiring soon to Mayagüez in Puerto Rico, where she is having a house built. She lived there before moving to New Jersey in the 1960s to raise her two daughters. Every summer the family goes back to soak up the warmth.

They head home, a three-bedroom townhouse in the Northeast. Before her parents divorced, the Nazarios lived in Juniata. After the split, Jazmin and her mother moved in with Pat for eight years. Two years ago, Isabel used her savings to buy a home for the two of them.

"For most of my life, she was my mother and my father," Jazmin says. She and Isabel have grown very close.

They quarrel, of course. Her mother scolds, "Stop spending so much time on the computer!" And when Jazmin takes too long dressing, her mother lectures her on punctuality. But they always make up.

Not yet so deep into the adolescent fugue, Jazmin still adores Isabel. She loves watching her mother dance to salsa and merengue. And she feels respected. "Even though I am young and inexperienced," Jazmin says, her mother turns to her for advice. "She is beautiful," she says. "A diva, but with simple taste."

Earlier that week, her mother had cut her hair short. When her mom's fiance, Carlos Buitrago, confessed that he preferred it long, Jazmin defended her. "You look beautiful regardless of what haircut you get," she said.

Jazmin likes Carlos but even so, her mother has been very cautious. Two years ago, after their first date, Isabel refused to let Carlos into the house. Although they were both police officers and had worked together, she didn't want him to meet her daughter until she was sure she could trust him.

A week before school starts, Isabel has news: There will be a wedding. Her mother has earned this happiness, Jazmin thinks.

People often mistake the women for sisters. They go shopping at the Willow Grove Mall. Her mother's one weakness is shoes. Everyone kids her about her collection, but despite the indulgence, she's careful with money. She saved for 10 years to buy them this sweet place in a better neighborhood.

Isabel cooks in the tiled galley kitchen. They sit down to rice and beans and pollo guisado - a braised chicken stew - by the window.

Jazmin is not an athlete, but her mother loves softball. Sometimes they play catch after school.

Last summer, when Jazmin went away for a few weeks, Isabel surprised her.

"What's your favorite color?" she asked her daughter.

"Aqua."

When she came home, Jazmin found her bedroom painted the color of the early-morning sea in Puerto Rico. On the door, she had hung a wooden plaque. "Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."

Lately, since so many police officers have been killed, her mother has been saying things like, "I want us to eat dinner together because my job is dangerous. It could be me next."

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