Nearly a thousand mourners gathered at a Brooklyn church this morning to bid a heart-wrenching goodbye to two toddlers who were swept to their deaths in superstorm Sandy’s ferocious flood.
Little Brendan Moore, 2, and his 4-year-old brother Connor were laid together in a single silver casket, which was surrounded by red and white roses at a 10:30 a.m. funeral at Saint Rose of Lima Church in Kensington.
The boy’s devastated mother, Glenda, wept as the chaplain of the city’s Sanitation Department, where the boy’s dad Damien worked, eulogized the youngsters.
“Glenda, Damien, there are no words that we can offer. The only thing that we can offer is our support as a family,” Chaplin Peter Colapietro said. “We pray for your strength in these days – we know that you will need it. But we also pray for your faith to know that.”
Among the mourners were some 300 sanitation workers who were on hand to support Damien and his family.
“We’ve always maintained that sanitation is a family and we’re here to support you with our prayers, with our love,” Colapietro said.
Noel Kilkenny, Consul General of Ireland, attended the funeral to support Damien Moore, who is a native of Ireland.
“These were two Irish children and American children,” Kilkenny said, “This is one of the more visible and heart wrenching signs of this tragedy.”
After the ceremony, friends of the family said Glenda Moore — who lost her grip on the youngsters as she tried to find shelter from Sandy’s massive storm surge after the family’s SUV stalled in flood water in South Beach on Oct. 29 — is having trouble dealing with the unfathomable loss.
“She is suffering,” her sister Marie Lemaire said. “She won’t eat.”
Moore’s cousin, Sonya Lemaire said, “It’s painful. It takes time.”
Steven Vatslie, a next door neighbor of the family said, called the boy’s “two angels” and said “the ceremony was great, to have all the support from the community.”