VETERAN firefighter John McSweeney said it simply: “He couldn’t have died a better death.”
McSweeney, who as a drummer in the Emerald Pipe Band is on call at all the funerals for fallen cops and firefighters, added: “This is the script he would have written.”
The Rev. Michael Duffy was the best friend of the Rev. Mychal Judge, who died in Tuesday’s terror as he gave the last rites to the stricken.
“He just loved the action,” Duffy said.
The funeral for the jovial Chaplain of the Fire Department, attended by former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton, in some ways put a vintage New York touch on a week etched in history.
First there was shock, then there was mourning, then there was outrage.
Yesterday, there was laughter at the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street, opposite Ladder Co. 24.
“I saw him on this ladder in this hostage situation in New Jersey as a man with a gun was holding his wife and baby hostage. Not an ounce of fear. He talked the man into putting down his gun,” said Father Duffy.
“Of course, the cameras were there.” Laughter.
“In case you think he was perfect, he did take time to comb and spray his hair before rushing down to the World Trade Center.”
And as his body was being carried out of the tortured building, Father Duffy noted with an irony fitting for the fun-loving Franciscan: “There was a camera there.”
Father Duffy added: “He was talking to God and helping people. Can you think of a better way to die?”
Peter Johnson, a longtime friend, recalled the misery of the morning when a tidal wave of Chinese refugees were wrecked off the Rockaways in a “dragon boat.”
“None of them could speak a word of English. Mike insisted, as he comforted them, on telling them jokes. They laughed,” Johnson said.
The Rev. Brian J. Jordan, a Franciscan who often heads up international relief for countries stricken by disaster, can never forget his first meeting with Father Mike.
“It was 25 years ago, and I probably would have wound up being a gunrunner for the IRA, but then I told him I really wanted to be a lawyer,” Father Brian said.
“He smiled, and hit me on the back with those big Irish hands and said, ‘Why do you want to be an unhappy lawyer instead of being a happy Franciscan?’ Well, here I am.
“When I heard of his death, I said to myself, am I going to sit here on my ass and cry, or do what Mike would want me to do? I got it moving down to ground zero.”
It was two weeks to the day that I was with Father Mike at St. Charles Church on Staten Island to say farewell to fallen fire fighter Michael Gorumba.
He was there with Chief Ray Downey, the lads from Rescue Four and Rescue One.
None of them were there yesterday.
Father Mike was carried out of the handiwork of horror by Police Lts. Bill Cosgrove and Marc Stollerman.
Father Mike was the first firefighter identified.
And his death certificate, as Father Duffy noted, was listed as Number One. Now, that is fitting for the former shoe-shine kid from Brooklyn, because he was there first to greet his brother firefighters to show them the ropes.