One Family, Two Tragedies

Naoemi Gullickson was late getting home last Thursday, and her daughter Amanda, 3, gazed anxiously out the front window of their Staten Island apartment. A newly nervous child, she turned to the cousin taking care of her and asked, "Is Mommy in heaven now too?" The question was brutally reasonable. Amanda's father, New York City fire department Lieutenant Joseph Gullickson, was killed on Sept. 11 at the World Trade Center. Then last week her grandfather Jose A. Perez died aboard American Airlines Flight 587. The little girl can't help fretting: Who in her family will be next not to come home?

New York last week was a city double struck by tragedy, and its fear and grief were distilled in the story of the Gullicksons. During the long, sleepless nights, Naoemi says, she wonders what are the odds of life being so cruel to one family. Losing her husband, she thought, was more than she could bear. But then came her father's doomed flight, and the gaping hole in her life was blasted wider. "I never thought I could feel worse," the 38-year-old widow says. "But Jo would have helped me get through my father's death. I miss him now more than ever."

She crawled through last week with the help of family, friends, neighbors and the fire fighters and five fellow widows of Brooklyn's Ladder 101. But the main motivation to get out of bed each day is her two children.

Since Sept. 11, they have talked about Daddy a lot, looked often at photographs of him and sung along to Jo's favorite Frank Sinatra and Neil Young tunes. Isabel, 14 months, is too young to understand, but Amanda knows that her daddy is in heaven with her grandfather. Every night she goes to a window, looks up at the sky and has private conversations with the dead.

On the outside, Jo, 37, and Jose, 73, were opposites. One was a beefy Irish-Norwegian fire fighter from Staten Island; the other, a slight, retired Dominican laborer who reared his six kids in Brooklyn. But Jo and Jose shared more than variations on a name. Their compassion and generosity were legendary: Jose was always quick with $10 or $20 for those in need, and young family members turned to Jo when they were looking for help finding work.

Neither man could stand to see a person suffer, and Jose took the loss of his son-in-law--and its effect on his daughter--badly. After the emotional drain of Jo's memorial service, Jose wanted to spend a week in the Dominican capital, Santo Domingo. His wife Mamerta decided she would stay in New York in case their daughter needed her, in case Jo's body was finally recovered. "It's devastating my husband hasn't been found yet," Naoemi says. "And now it could be the same thing with my father. Is this a bad dream?"

If only she could wake up and find it was the afternoon of Sept. 10. Jo was home after helping out with his family's lawn-sprinkler business, before heading for the firehouse. He flicked through a magazine with pictures of big Victorian homes. "Let's go and look at some houses tomorrow," he said to his wife of five years. But for Jo, tomorrow was cut short. "I'm thankful I had him for the time I did, so thankful that he chose me," Naoemi says. "But it was too short. We had our lives planned for the next 40 years."

Theirs was a truly American marriage: the wedding album is full of laughing faces, pink-skinned and brown, brunet and blond, all brought together by Jo and Naoemi's love. The album lies within easy reach of the living-room sofa, where the young widow spends most nights. Even before Sept. 11, Naoemi slept there whenever Jo worked the night shift. She says, "I just didn't like being in bed without him."