Luzia Sikorsky at first couldn’t read the flood of mail from Florida, Colorado and elsewhere that was delivered to her Spring Valley, N.Y., home. Eventually, she opened it. It taught her things about Gregory R. Sikorsky, one of her four sons. People remembered the 34-year-old New York City firefighter for the positive-thinking man he had become -— and the considerate boy he once was. Letters and cards came from people he knew in high school. They told of how he helped them, in ways he probably had long forgotten. A woman wrote of her angst-filled adolescence and a junior high school dance. Always the wallflower, she watched her classmates pairing off on the floor. Sikorsky surprised her by telling her she was pretty. He asked her to dance. The woman said “she would never forget him. It changed her life,” Luzia recalled. Similar anecdotes filled letter after letter. “He helped out a lot of people, which I didn’t really know until now,” Luzia said. Sikorsky, a 17-year volunteer firefighter with the Hillcrest Fire Co., craved adventure and didn’t require the security of terra firma. The licensed pilot took his youngest brother, Perry, on a flight to explore the skies. He enjoyed skydiving. As a scuba diver, he plumbed deep sea mysteries. The adventurer with a gentle side helped people in the past. He still does. His acts of kindness, memorialized on paper, comfort Luzia, wife Marie, 3-year-old son Steven and other family members. Said Luzia, “It helps you, that he was such a good person and so many people loved and cared about him.”

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