A Promise Kept Brings Joy in Midst of Sorrow

From the pews of Brooklyn’s St. James Lutheran Church came the whispers.

“Is Rudy really coming?” a boy asked his mother.

“I don’t know if he can make it. The mayor is very busy.”

Busy enough that everyone would have forgiven Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani if he had skipped the wedding Sunday afternoon. Almost from the moment of the attack on New York, Giuliani has been the tireless, unwavering voice of comfort and resolve, a chaplain, friend and field general.

But several weeks ago, at a funeral for a fallen firefighter, he had promised to walk the fireman’s sister down the aisle. Diane Gorumba had also lost her father and grandfather to natural causes over the past year, and she and her mother, Gail, were flattered by the mayor’s promise to stand in.

Those who couldn’t squeeze into St. James lined up Sunday on Gerritsen Avenue on the chance of spotting Giuliani. Gerritsen Beach is a neighborhood of corner grocery stores and chats on porches. It’s a neighborhood of cops, sanitation workers and firefighters. More than two dozen of the firefighters missing and presumed dead at the World Trade Center are from here, where salt air blows in across the marshes, and sons and daughters follow their fathers into precinct houses and ladder companies.

“I am going to take time out to go to a wedding,” Mayor Giuliani had said earlier on Sunday, mentioning how Gail Gorumba had persevered in the face of tragedy, having lost three loved ones in so short a span.

“I have thought many times about Mrs. Gorumba--she allows the pain to happen, and then she focuses on the good things in life,” he said.

At 10 minutes to 3, the groom, police officer Michael Ferrito, took his place at the altar.

Five minutes later, the cheers on the street could be heard inside the church.

Rudy had arrived.

He was secreted in through a back door, then walked past me on his way to join the bridal party on the front steps of the church. I followed him to the vestibule and watched.

From across the street and as far down the block as Poppa’s Delicatessen, nearly 200 people applauded at the sight of him. Three generations called his name, whistled and waved American flags.

The man they cheered--a man with well-publicized personal problems and an ongoing battle against cancer--wasn’t just standing up for Diane Gorumba. He had been standing up for the entire city, expressing its grief and promising its survival.

That’s his job, of course, and he had always acted as if he were camp counselor to 8 million citizens, many of whom got stuck in his craw. But he had never done it with such unifying grace.

“Clear the aisles,” ushers ordered as the congregation moved toward the vestibule with cameras, trying to capture this moment of generosity and hope, the mayor waving to the crowd.

Giuliani descended the steps to greet Gail and Diane Gorumba, and then stood in place like a soldier. It seemed as though he had told himself to do nothing that would upstage Diane Gorumba. It wasn’t his fault that when the wedding march began, and Giuliani led the bride into the church, applause erupted.

The mayor smiled broadly as he marched the bride up the aisle, then he shrunk away and took a seat. An early exit would have required no explanation, but the mayor stayed for the entire ceremony, as if savoring this respite from one of the worst acts of war in the history of man.

Giuliani will be ceremonial pallbearer for more than 5,000 people before this is over. He was here on a promise, and he was here to drive home the point he had made earlier:

The suffering will not end any time soon, nor will the war. But life goes on.

When Diane and Michael were pronounced husband and wife, the mayor took his place in the greeting line outside the church and shook the hand of every last parishioner. By then, the crowd on the street had grown to nearly 300.

“Four more years,” shouted one man. Giuliani is nearing the end of his second and final term as mayor.

Dozens wore NYFD shirts and hats, and one fireman told me 28 of the estimated 300 who are unaccounted for lived in Gerritsen Beach. Another 35 are from nearby Marine Park.

Kerri Orloff, 14, Katelyn Blundell, 13, and Kaitlyn Hardy, also 13, waved a “Thanks Rudy” sign in the middle of Gerritsen Avenue. The girls have been assembling care packages for rescue workers, and Kerri’s dad is a lieutenant in Engine Company 201, which lost four firefighters at the World Trade Center.

Robert Hommel, a cop shot in the line of duty two years ago, was there with his three children and wife, Tara, who waved a flag.

“It was phenomenal that he came,” said bridesmaid Angela Thomas, sister of the groom. Behind her, a woman shouted, “God bless you, Rudy.”

I sat down under a shade tree next to Doris Mendez, and we took in the scene together. Almost parenthetically, she told me her son, Charles, is among the missing firemen.

“She had nobody to walk her down the aisle,” Doris Mendez said as the bride got into a white limousine with her new husband. “That’s a great thing the mayor did. To give us something happy to come and see in the midst of all this tragedy.”

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Steve Lopez can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com