NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / World

A son buried five times

16 Sep, 2003 08:15 AM7 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

By DAVID USBORNE in New York

Mark Petrocelli lived the New York story. Born into a family of blue-collar firefighters, by September 11, 2001, he had pulled himself up to become a commodities trader for a fancy firm in the World Trade Centre.

Today, his is still a New York story. There
is no closure to the grieving of Mark. His body parts are still coming to his family and the mourning may never be allowed to end.

Spend a moment today thinking of his parents, Al and Ginger Petrocelli, a retired couple from New York City. Theirs has been no ordinary journey of mourning. Yet it has also hardly been unique among the families of September 11 victims.

The good news, if you can call it that, is that at least Mark was formally identified fairly quickly after the tragedy, thanks to DNA matching in the New York Medical Examiner's Office.

So many families have had to find ways to grieve without having even a fragment of their loved ones to honour. But his remains have been coming to Al and Ginger piecemeal. And still they do not have all of him.

The Petrocellis had more to do than simply attend the second anniversary commemoration service at Ground Zero.

When it was over, Al, Ginger and Mark's widow, Nicole, would be returning to their neighbourhood on Staten Island to perform another important duty. They have to bury another consignment of Mark's remains.

This batch was identified by the medical examiner just a week ago.

It must take a special kind of spirit to cope with such an ordeal. But the Petrocellis seem to possess it. This is now the fifth time that parts of their son have been identified.

That is five different times they have had to relive the memories and find ways to touch him and tell him they haven't forgotten.

"This is uncharted territory for all of us," Ginger said yesterday. Speaking from the front room of her home in the community of Huguenot on Staten Island, she was preparing for yet one more chore on Mark's behalf.

With Al and Nicole, she was preparing to join a rally at Ground Zero to protest at plans to redevelop the area with a new soaring skyscraper and acres of commercial space.

However long the trail of mourning, no one in the Petrocelli clan was going to forget Mark quickly. Al, a retired fireman, has erected a memorial for his son in their small front garden. Lawn has been replaced by brick, a flagpole carries the star-spangled banner.

There is a photograph of Mark on his wedding day and a piece of a World Trade Centre steel girder.



Ginger manages to explain that in many ways they have been lucky. No more so than this week. Because, for the first time, she was allowed to actually touch the newest portion of remains, which consisted of much of Mark's right femur, his kneecap, some muscle and a piece of his skull.

It was Nicole, a teacher who was newly married to Mark when the terrorists struck, who begged the undertakers to keep the parts in the same plastic pouch provided by the Medical Examiner's Office before placing them in the usual sealed box for cremation.

"I felt his bones," Ginger confides, giving away her satisfaction at achieving this feat. "It gave me something that I at least touched him."

She and Al are in frequent touch with other families of the victims. And it is true, she says, that many of them say that she is among the lucky ones. Because they have received parts of Mark, even if not all at once.

The official death toll at the World Trade Centre is 2792. But of those, the remains of only 1520 have been identified. Thousands of other parts that are not identified will be interred at the site soon.

"That's what they say to us, not that we should be thankful, but at least that we have something," Ginger says of other relatives who have not received identified parts.

"They just wish they, too, had something. How do these families cope with having nothing back from their loved ones? So many victims just disintegrated."

The Petrocellis learned on September 25, 2001, that their son had been formally identified as a victim through dental records. A month later they learned that his upper torso had been identified.

In November other parts of Mark were found. Then in March last year, the office came back with news that they had four more parts, including his heart.

What his parents think they know is that Mark was blown straight out of the tower the moment the hijacked plane hit. This gives them a measure of solace.

"Yes, that helps a little," says Ginger. "We believe it was very, very fast.

"To think of him being trapped in there for very long would have been too much. But I really believe that it hit him fast."

But how is it possible to keep having to revisit the pain?

"We are not finished with it, in fact, we really don't see a time when this process will be finished so long as they have parts there," Ginger says.

"And as long as they have body parts they are working on - remaining tissue - there will always be the chance that there will be more of him.

"I don't believe we will ever have the chance to let the grieving go. It is our way of life right now. I am not looking for that to change."

In all of this, Al and Ginger still have space in their souls to nurture some anger.

That is why they were driving from Staten Island to Ground Zero yesterday to join the protest. They are infuriated that the city is moving ahead with plans to raise a new tower on the site before even a single stone has been laid for a memorial to the dead.

"They have lied to us from the beginning and they are using this terrible thing that has happened to our loved ones to build bigger and better. Shame on them," says Ginger.

"Not yet, not yet. Do the right thing first and do the memorial. Everybody knows that that would be the right thing to do."

In spite of their frustration, the Petrocellis never hesitated about attending the remembrance service at Ground Zero today.

They planned to be up at dawn to leave with Nicole at 6am and drive to Lower Manhattan. On her lap, Ginger would be cradling a small bunch of pale roses.

"We will go down to the bottom with the other families and I will lay down the roses there," she said.

Almost in a whisper, she adds: "And I will say a prayer for Mark."

They all know that their family life will never be the same, even if the slow delivery of Mark's remains finally comes to an end.

The old routines of a tightly-knit New York family are undone forever. Like the Sunday lunches when everyone would gather in Al and Ginger's kitchen to share a ritual meal of meatballs and macaroni.

How much pain and commemoration can you pack into a single week? There was the protest yesterday, the memorial service today as well as a visit to the Brooklyn fire house where Mark's brother Al jnr is an officer for a Mass in Mark's honour.

Then there will be the afternoon visit to Staten Island cemetery for the burial of the cremated remains of the newest parts from Mark's body.

Even then the work of grieving will not be over for the Petrocelli family.

Tomorrow is a special day also - it would have been Mark's 31st birthday.

- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: The Sept 11 attacks

Related links

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from World

World

Ukraine says Russia launched largest drone, missile attack of war

09 Jul 07:42 AM
Premium
World

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot shares anti-Semitic posts on X

09 Jul 07:19 AM
World

Study: Climate change made European heatwave up to 4C hotter

09 Jul 05:07 AM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from World

Ukraine says Russia launched largest drone, missile attack of war

Ukraine says Russia launched largest drone, missile attack of war

09 Jul 07:42 AM

The latest strike beat a previous Russian record of 550 drones and missiles.

Premium
Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot shares anti-Semitic posts on X

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot shares anti-Semitic posts on X

09 Jul 07:19 AM
 Study: Climate change made European heatwave up to 4C hotter

Study: Climate change made European heatwave up to 4C hotter

09 Jul 05:07 AM
Teen attack at Brazil school kills child, injures two more

Teen attack at Brazil school kills child, injures two more

09 Jul 03:43 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP