PEARL CITY — Before going to sleep early yesterday morning, 16-year-old Jadene Madamba reminded her grandmother not to lock the front screen door because her mother didn't like that.

Teresita "Tessie" Madamba did as her granddaughter asked, even though Janice Madamba wasn't coming home.

By 2 a.m. yesterday, more than 50 of Janice's friends and a host of relatives had stopped by the house to offer condolences. People came by the house all day and into the night.

Janice Madamba, 33, a single mother of two who worked at Straub Clinic & Hospital at Pearlridge, was killed Saturday when her car collided head-on with a car driven by a woman visiting from Montana who was traveling in the wrong direction on the H-3 Freeway. The accident occurred at 3:45 a.m., on the Halawa side, three miles from the Harano Tunnels.

Janice Madamba died at the scene. The other driver, 46, was taken to The Queen's Medical Center in serious condition.

"It's so sad for the children," Tessie Madamba said yesterday. "The boy (9-year-old Iyren Madamba Sales) woke up this morning and asked, 'Mama, my mom didn't come home yet?' I had to sit him down and tell him 'you know it's not going to happen. She's up there watching you guys.' "

Jadene struggles to accept the loss of her mother.

"I know she's not," she said, pausing briefly before continuing, "but I still hope she'll come home.

"It's hard but I'm going to learn to accept it. I still can't believe it, because it came out of nowhere. We acted like sisters, joking around a lot."

Her mother, a Pearl City High graduate who put herself through school and worked in medical records, is remembered as a fun-loving person, caring person, and the "party organizer" whose homemade Chinese chicken salad was a favorite at potlucks.

"We all expect her to walk in the door," said Grace Madamba, the elder sister of Janice. "It's heartbreaking. I always see in the papers that this kind of thing happens, and I always used to think about the families that had to deal with it.

"It was so sudden and something not even of her doing. You just never expect it to happen to your family. Life is so short."

Grace said her father, Julian Madamba Jr., a Roberts Hawaii tour bus driver, received a call from his employer Saturday asking him to return to the office because of a call from the medical examiner's office. "My dad called me because he didn't want to call the morgue," Grace said.

The family gathered at the two-story Pearl City home of Julian and Prisca Madamba, where Janice and her children lived on the first floor. Grace called her mother Tessie, and came from 'Ewa Beach with her boyfriend, Richard Balinbin, who returned the call to the medical examiner on behalf of the family.

Grace broke the news to her niece, Jadene.

"I told her 'mom's not OK, something happened to mom,'" Grace said. "She asked me 'what do you mean she's not OK' and I told her that we lost her.

"For me, I feel like my sister took a piece of my heart with her and I'm never going to get it back because it's with her now."

Tessie Madamba had heard there was an accident and passed by the scene while driving to work at Marine Corps Base Hawai'i in Kane'ohe at 4 a.m. Saturday.

"I saw the ambulance, policemen and fire trucks and if I would have known, maybe I would have tried to look and recognize her car," Tessie Madamba said. "We never had a chance to say goodbye.

"I just talked to her Friday because we were planning a late Father's Day barbecue this coming Friday for grandpa (Florencio Duldulao, Tessie's father). She was a very strong-willed person and had so many plans. Now ... "

Her voice softened as she wiped away more tears.

Funeral plans are pending. Janice Madamba is also survived by her brother, Nolen Madamba of Alaska.

Reach Rod Ohira at rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.