By Susan Lin
To his wife, Cheryl, his children, Phylicia, Christopher, I express the condolences of the eight million people that are indebted to the heroism of Joseph Rivelli. On Sept. 11, we never lost as many lives but we've never saved as many either. And for that, we are entirely grateful to your husband and father, Giuliani said at the memorial, which took place at Our Lady of Good Counsel R.C. Church.
Rivelli's 15-year-old daughter, Phylicia, also took the podium, and told of what it was like growing up with her father. My friends and I used to have a great time with him when he would drive us around. He never knew any of words to the songs, but he would sing them anyway. ... But the best thing that I liked about him was that he made my mom so happy, so happy it sometimes made me sick, Phylicia Rivelli said.
A member of the search-and-rescue team for Ladder 25 on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Joseph Rivelli had been one of the first firefighters to arrive at the World Trade Center after it was attacked by terrorists.
With six fellow firefighters, Rivelli had rushed into the second tower moments after it was struck by the plane. Rivelli and his colleagues were en route by elevator to the 40th floor, when the unbelievable happened: The 110-story building collapsed.
During the memorial service, as speakers related anecdotes about Rivelli, the widow Cheryl Rivelli, with Phylicia and son Christopher, 12, listened from the front pew.
He loved to play practical jokes on people, especially me. If you asked his friends what they most liked about him, it would be his sense of humor, and that is what I will miss the most, said Ray Herbst, a firefighter with Ladder 25.
Herbst said Rivelli, who knew how to fly planes in addition to fight fires, had for the longest time tried to persuade him to join him in flying a plane.
I said there's no way I'm getting into a plane with someone whose eyesight is worse than mine, said Herbst. But, in spite of his words, Herbst did one day get into a plane with Rivelli.
Just as he took off, I noticed he started fumbling in a bag that sat on his lap. I said, 'What are you looking for?' He said, 'My glasses,' said Herbst.
After a while, though, he grinned, and he knew he had me for a joke, said Herbst.
Although the memorial fulfilled the purpose of honoring her late husband, Cheryl Rivelli said the service will do little to bring her a sense of closure about his death, which technically is still unconfirmed.
To me this isn't closure. Because of a senseless act, now I won't have my husband with me. To me, there will be no closure, Cheryl Rivelli wrote in the program for the memorial service.
Where she does find solace is in her faith in God. I'll never understand but I have faith in God that there is a reason and I just don't know it yet, Rivelli said.
Now with a husband missing for over two months, Cheryl Rivelli finds that she has had to make adjustments to her plans for the future.
The days following Thanksgiving, Rivelli said she and her husband planned a trip to Florida to scout out a potential home to buy. Her husband had planned to take commercial flight lessons in Florida, and his whole family had planned to move there with him.
We had a house here and a house out east, and we were going to sell both and move to Florida. Now I don't know. There's a lot of memories here in this house, she said, from her home on Westcott Street.
Perhaps luckier than most who lost loved ones that day, though, Cheryl Rivelli was able to exchange some last words with her husband before he died. Before entering the second tower, Joseph Rivelli had called his wife by cell phone.
Oh God, the second tower was just hit. It sounds like sabotage. I have to go. I love you, he said.
Be careful, Cheryl Rivelli said.
I'm always careful, he replied.
Rivelli is one of the 343 firefighters who are confirmed or presumed dead on Sept. 11.
