Michael DeRienzo: Half of a
Duo
Michael
DeRienzo, a broker at Cantor Fitzgerald, had the safe
job
in his family. It was his twin sister, Lisa, a
narcotics detective in the New York City Police
Department, who put herself in harm's way every time she
went to work. Mr. DeRienzo was so nervous that he would
call daily and beep her if he got no answer at her desk.
"I'm OK, I'm OK," Ms. DeRienzo, who just turned 36, would
assure him.
Mr. DeRienzo and his sister were close as close can
be, twins and then some. Their father had disappeared
years back, remarried and not maintained contact with the
family. Their mother died of cancer four years ago. "It
was just him and me," Ms. DeRienzo said. "We were like
magnets."
As children, attending parochial school near the
family's Staten Island home, she was the standout
athlete. Michael would grow testy with people who
considered him merely "Lisa's brother." All that changed
in college, she said, when her brother reached his full
growth &emdash; tall and thin, a
marathoner-in-the-making, a favorite among the girls at
Wagner College. "Then it was `Lisa who?'" she said.
On Sept. 10, the twins were planning a weekend trip to
Chicago for a Mets-Cubs game, to be together on the
anniversary of their mother's death. Instead, with a
fellow member of the narcotics task force who also lost a
sibling, Ms. DeRienzo spent the doubly sad day in the
bucket brigade at the World Trade Center.
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