The Lost

By Sandra Peddie | STAFF WRITERS; Michael Thier; Melanie Lefkowitz; Brian Donovan; Los Angeles Times

September 18, 2001

THEY WERE the doers, the movers, the strivers. These were not people who let the world pass them by. They grabbed life and embraced those around them with it.

What is striking about the missing and the lost is the quality of their lives.

Many were doing what they wanted to do, what some of them felt they were born to do. They lived their dreams, pursued their passions. The two brothers - a firefighter and a cop - who were following in the footsteps of the father they love. The NBC technician who was at his post when the plane hit the second tower. The two women who had worked together for 31 years.

They are defined by their dedication, characterized by their courage.

For the families, the shock,

the grief, the numbness comes and goes in waves. Some

families have made funeral arrangements. Others still wait, resolutely clinging to a "peephole" of hope.

Friends grieve. Friends of friends weep along with them. The pain ripples outward. The people who know the lost and missing want to tell their stories. They are desperate to share the jokes, the greeting cards, the clubs, the movies. The wisdom and the insight. All the ways - from the simple to the profound - in which these men and women touched their lives.

The world is changed irrevocably now that these lives, these lights, are snuffed out.

It seems no one is untouched.

A Friend Indeed To Those in Need

Paul Jurgens always is first to respond, whatever the need, loved ones said. Whether to shovel snow for an elderly neighbor or to help the injured at a trauma scene, it never takes more than a phone call.

"He is just the kind of person who, if something was needed on the block, in the neighborhood, in the family, he was the first to respond," said Maria Liotta, Jurgens' sister-in-law. "He is always available for whatever was needed."

True to form, Jurgens, 47, a Port Authority officer for 21 years, was among the first to respond last week to the scene of the World Trade Center attacks. The Levittown resident is among 37 missing Port Authority officers.

Jurgens, a former U.S. Marine Corps corporal, carried many of the injured from the 1993 WTC bombing. But his proudest achievement, friends said, is his relationship with Maria, 43, his wife of 19 years, and their three children. Paul, 17, and June, 15, are students at Division High School; Lindsay, 9, attends Summit Elementary.

The youngest of four siblings, Paul Jurgens is an East Meadow Fire Department volunteer and coaches P.A.L. baseball.

Liotta said she and her husband chose Jurgens as the executor of their estate. "Paul's truly the most honest, trustworthy, organized person I know in the whole world," she said. - Michael Thier

A Love of Family, Friends and Fun

Peter Ortale worked hard and played hard, his family said.

Ortale, 37, who worked at Eurobrokers, a brokerage firm, also was a diehard lacrosse player - captain of his college team at Duke, a sometime member of the U.S. lacrosse team and a player for the New York Athletic Club.