by Deacon Vincent M. La Gamba
In a few days, it will be one year since Rita Hayden peacefully returned to the house of the Father. She passed on May 6, 2024, which is the month dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary (or Pompei). I truly miss her, and I will always remember her as the lady “with” the rosary, praying it for her family and friends outside of abortion clinics with Msgr.
Philip Reilly, and annually at March for Life in Washington, D.C. She did it for 30 consecutive years. Hayden had a very busy spiritual life within the faithful community of St. Francis de Sales Parish in Belle Harbor. She was an active parishioner before I started my diaconal formation. We met on the bus as we traveled to celebrate the first Jubilee of the third millennium (Year 2000) with then-Bishop Thomas Daily.
It was an indelible and happy day at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing. A year later, we both experienced two tragic events in our community. First, 14 parishioners were killed on 9/11. Then, two months and one day later, American Airlines Flight 587 crashed on 130th Street, killing five more parishioners.
Hayden attended most of the funerals of our parishioners, as did I. It was a busy time for her to pray her rosary for all people impacted by those two tragic events. She was also busy preparing rosaries with a locket for the 343 firefighter families who lost their dear ones on 9/11. An additional 97 rosaries were requested through her husband, Peter, who was then in charge of the “rescue and recovery operation” for the FDNY.
Each rosary contained a locket, in which she placed a picture of each firefighter along with a personal note from her husband to all of the families. Everyone appreciated Hayden’s noble gesture. Through her rosaries, she influenced the spiritual life of many. But there is more to it. Her husband was promoted to chief of the FDNY.
On Jan. 23, 2005, he went to visit some firefighters at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, where he met Mrs. Cawley, who had lost her first son, Michael, on 9/11. She was sitting at the end of the hospital hall, waving at him while holding a rosary that Hayden had given to her. She was at the hospital because her younger son, Brendan, who was only working for five months, was hospitalized after being forced to jump 50 feet out of a burning building in the Bronx.
Two people died on that terrible day. Mrs. Cawley said to Peter, “My son Brendan is going to make it.” And, sure enough, he did. Why? Mrs. Crawley believed in Hayden, who gave her a rosary that conquered the adversity of life. Her second son did not die. A miracle? Only God knows.
Deacon Vincent M. La Gamba is a retired deacon of St. Francis de Sales Parish in Belle Harbor.