By Jonann Brady
Brain McAleese, 36, grew up in Baldwin, one of four siblings in a tight-knit Irish family. His father Jack, a 25-year FDNY veteran, succumbed to multiple sclerosis just last year. His brother, John, 38, is a firefighter at Engine 219, and brother Kevin, 41, is a New York City detective. Sisters Pat Nitti, 40, and Maureen Porcelli, 30, live nearby and their mother Ann Marie still lives in the Tennyson Avenue house they all grew up in.
Brian had started his own clan with his wife, Dawn, the girl he grew up with.
From the pulpit of St. Christopher's Church, Msgr. John Bennett addressed the four smallest McAleeses Brianne, 5, Jack, 4, Liam, 2, and Aidan, 7 months telling them, "Maybe you don't understand. Believe me when I say no one in this church understands."
sub: Cast your net again
In his homily, Bennett compared the story of Brian McAleese to the story of Jesus taking the disciples fishing. The moral of that story, he said, was to "try once more. Cast your net again."
Bennett repeated an oft-told McAleese tale, the one in which Brian gave up his own Class A uniform so a retired firefighter in his 80s who didn't have a uniform could be buried in one.
The dead firefighter was dressed in a regular suit and Brian brought his dress blues to the funeral home, said Bennett. The undertaker told Brian, sorry, we can't do it. The man is already dressed.
"Did you ever try to talk Brain McAleese out of anything?" asked Bennett. He finally convinced the undertaker to let him help undress and redress the man himself.
"It's like on Sept. 11. Climb one more flight of stairs. Save one more person," said Bennett. "Try once more. Cast your net again."
The story was typical of Brian, said Matt Nelson, a captain at Engine 226, where Brian worked.
"I wish you could have seen that look on the battalion chief's face at the next uniform inspection as [Brian] tried to explain that one. He [the chief] was surprised, but no one in Engine 226 was," said Nelson.
Brian was a moral man, one who saw things in terms of black and white, said his friends and family. They remembered his kindness to friends and strangers alike. Nelson recalled that when Brian was house hunting, he thought he had found the perfect place, but an old man named Charlie still lived there and didn't seem ready to leave.
"Brian was toying with the idea of buying the house and letting Charlie spend the rest of his days there," said Nelson.
Again, pure Brian McAleese. He never made "any man sing for his supper," said his wife, Dawn.
Friends and family remembered his selflessness as he took multiple sclerosis patients fishing, horseback riding at dude ranches and bowling, even though many of them were in wheelchairs. Following Brian's example, many of his collegues at Engine 226 volunteered with the MS Society also.
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who attended the service, compared the attack on Pearl Harbor to Sept. 11, and said it was the bravery of Brian McAleese and others like him who saved the country.
He spoke directly to the McAleese children: "Nobody can take your daddy from you. No way. He's part of us."
As 2-year-old Liam, the family cut-up, sang from the front row
throughout the speech, Giulian joked, "He's got spirit. That's what I'm talking about."
Giuliani then assured the family, "You're not alone. An entire country is in your debt." He then asked everyone to stand and applaud, and hundreds of mourners stood for a thunderous, extended ovation, many wiping tears from their eyes.
But the tears did not end then. John McAleese, the middle brother and fellow firefighter, recited a letter and a poem he had written to Brian, vowing he would always be there for Dawn and their four children.
In one particularly moving passage of his poem, John recalled how he and brother Kevin, searched through the rubble at ground zero:
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