Mary Heffernan's spirit just left her on the day of the attacks. One of her sons, John Heffernan, a firefighter on the Lower East Side, was missing at the World Trade Center. Five years earlier, her son Patrick had died in a construction accident.
Another son, Michael Heffernan, also a firefighter, looked for his big brother. He searched for weeks. Their sister, Deirdre Heffernan, stayed with their mother. A fourth brother, Brian, is a New York City police officer.
John Heffernan was a man with many sides. One moment, he was in a firefighter's uniform, rushing into burning buildings to save lives at the risk of his own. In the next, he was on stage in a black T-shirt and jeans, playing rhythm guitar in a punk rock band, the Bullys, that he helped found. In another, he was a devoted husband to his wife, Lori, and a devoted father to his 9-year-old daughter, Samantha.
A crew sifting through the wreckage at ground zero discovered John Heffernan's body on Oct. 2, his wife's 31st birthday, Deirdre Heffernan said.
New York Times
Published: February 24, 2002