From the April 6, 2010 Southtown Star:

The 1995 graduating class at St. Bernadette School in Evergreen Park had but a couple of dozen students, yet four have died tragically since earning their grade school diplomas 15 years ago.

Paddy Lyons. Jason Grencik. Eileen Recchia. Brian Carey.

This morning, when friends and relatives of Carey gather at St. Bernadette Church for his funeral Mass, the families of those other classmates will know the pain of a promising life cut short.

First there was Lyons, a former altar boy just 15 when he was struck and killed while running to beat a freight train in 1996.

Recchia, a Mother McAuley graduate destined for her final year at Loras College and a career in teaching, was killed in a 2002 car wreck on Lake Shore Drive.

Two years later, Grencik was found dead from heart problems.

Last week, Carey was killed battling a blaze that also took the life of an 87-year-old man.

“Four kids, way before their time,” said Terry Recchia, Eileen’s father.

Debbie Yukich, Grencik’s mother, lives just two doors down from the Careys. She’s watched well-wishers stream into the neighborhood and tie red ribbons along light poles and trees on the block.

She’s visited with the Carey family, just as they sat in her living room when Jason died.

The Recchias have dropped by the Carey home, too.

“Even with what we’ve gone through, we don’t know what to say to them,” Terry Recchia said. “Sometimes, it’s best just to listen.”

The parents all tell gutwrenching stories about tears and heartache.

Long after the emotionally draining wakes and funeral Masses, they said, the pain never goes away. It lingers in private, stings in public and is exacerbated nearly every time the families are recognized as people who’ve lost a child.

Because when you’re the parent of a dead child, people forget what to say to you.

When they do find the words, Maureen Lyons said, they can be unintentionally hurtful, with comments like their loved one “is in a better place.”

“There’s not a ‘better place,’ ” Lyons said. “The ‘better place’ is next to me.”

Recchia said his family went “stagnant” after Eileen’s death and has kept a low profile. Sometimes he wishes he could just be anonymous, which is virtually impossible in tightly knit Evergreen Park.

Bright spots will be hard to find, the parents said. But they are there.

Lyons said more than 1,000 people turned out for her son’s wake, many of whom offered stories about Paddy, yarns that his mother never knew.

Once in a while, their children’s old friends still call.

“That’s a good feeling,” Recchia said.

A few weeks ago, Carey reached out to Maureen Lyons on Facebook.

Stretching back to their days on the Warriors’ basketball court, he and Paddy were always great friends, Lyons said, so Carey made sure to call once in a while just to lend his voice.

He recently told her about racing in the Shamrock Shuffle and his excitement about a trip to Las Vegas.

One time, he called her from Ireland just to say hello.

Because he was a good grade school buddy, Carey always was committed to keeping Paddy’s memory alive, Lyons said.

Now her family – and all the others affected by these twists of fate – will try and return the favor.

A CALL FOR SUPPORT

Community members from Oak Lawn, Evergreen Park and Chicago are rallying to support the family of Brian Carey, the 28-year-old Homewood firefighter killed in a fire last week.

They’re urging residents to line 103rd Street at 9 a.m. today in a show of solidarity for the fallen Evergreen Park resident.

Carey’s funeral procession is to start at Blake-Lamb Funeral Home, 4727 W. 103rd St., Oak Lawn, and travel east to Pulaski Road.

From there, it will go north to 95th Street and then east to Richmond Avenue, then north to 94th Street and finally east to St. Bernadette Catholic Church, 9343 S. Francisco Ave.

Burial will follow at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, 6601 W. 111th St., Alsip.

BR. RICE COMMUNITY MOURNS ANOTHER LOSS

Brian Carey’s death last week while fighting a fire in Homewood wasn’t just another loss for a grade school class that’s seen its share of tragedy.

It also was another blow to Carey’s high school, Brother Rice, which has seen three alumni die tragically in less than a year.

Chicago police officer Alejandro “Alex” Valadez, a 2000 Rice graduate who lived in Chicago, was shot to death in June while investigating a shooting.

Army Spc. Jared Stanker, a 2006 Rice graduate from Evergreen Park, was killed by a bomb while serving in Afghanistan in November.

And Carey, a 1999 Rice graduate and Homewood firefighter, died a week ago in a house fire that also killed an 89-year-old man and injured another firefighter.