A cancer-stricken retired NYPD detective who spent his final days fighting to restore funding for sick 9/11 responders was haunted by The Pile even hours before his death, kin said at his funeral Wednesday.
Luis Alvarez’s sister told the hundreds of mourners — including cops, firefighters, US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and comedian-turned-activist Jon Stewart — that the night before he died, “I woke up to my brother attempting to get out of bed.
“He was coughing. He was agitated. He told me he had been walking and walking and walking. He wanted to sit in a chair,” Aida Lugo recalled.
“The nurse asked him where he was walking. … My brother responded, ‘I was walking to find first responders to make sure they get help.’ ”
Church pastor the Rev. John Harrington added in his sermon that the haunted Alvarez said, “I’m on The Pile.”
Alvarez, a 53-year-old former bomb squad officer and a Marine veteran, was given a hero’s farewell at Immaculate Conception Church in Astoria, Queens.
Alvarez died Saturday after a three-year battle with colorectal cancer, which doctors believe was linked to the three months he spent on The Pile at Ground Zero.
“It became my brother’s dying wish, the legacy he wanted to leave, that the bill protecting victims’ compensation be passed,” Lugo told mourners. “Humble as he was, he hoped to have some small piece in that.”
She said one of his partners recounted how he was “one of the quietest men I had ever worked with, but in the end, he made the most noise.”
Harrington said, “We noticed at the Marines and most specifically with the police department of the city of New York that he found himself. He found his mission.”
Nearly three weeks before his death, a frail Alvarez appeared alongside Stewart to make a moving plea before a House Judiciary subcommittee. He urged the lawmakers to replenish aid for 9/11 victims, telling his listeners that the “fund isn’t a ticket to paradise, it’s to provide our families with care.”
Stewart declined to comment Wednesday before the funeral, saying he would allow the Alvarez family to speak on his behalf.
In addition to Lugo, Alvarez leaves behind his wife, Lainie, and the couple’s three sons, David, Tyler and Benjamin, as well as his parents.
His eldest son, David, paid tribute to his “American hero” at the service, recounting how his father always told him there’s a “thin line between bravery and stupidity.
“I promise to keep walking on the brave side of the line,” he told mourners.
After the funeral Mass, Alvarez’s wife, Lainie, wiped away tears and followed her beloved spouse’s casket, which was draped with an NYPD flag.
Alvarez’s casket was hoisted into a hearse and led up the Astoria street as the NYPD’s Emerald Society played “God Bless America.”
NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill, who gave remarks at the Mass, vowed to carry on Alvarez’s fight to restore the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.
“Luis Alvarez was an authentic man,” O’Neill said. “At the end of the day and all throughout his remarkable life, Luis just wanted to do what’s right. And he desperately wanted others, particularly those in positions of great power, to follow suit.”