Newsday - May 11, 2004

Hundreds mourn 'most popular kid on LI'

BY JENNIFER SMITH
STAFF WRITER

May 11, 2004

Knocked flat by the death of his best friend, Ricky Gilbert couldn't come up with words to describe how he felt.

So at the funeral Monday for Craig Grumet, a junior at The Wheatley School who was killed Friday night in a car accident, Gilbert, 16, trusted song lyrics to tell what was in his heart.

"Life ain't always what it seems to be, words can't express what you mean to me," he said to the hundreds of mourners at Temple Sinai in Roslyn Heights, quoting the Puff Daddy song "I'll Be Missing You." He stopped midway, sitting with bowed head while another friend finished the reading.

An estimated 800 to 1,000 people packed the temple's 550-seat sanctuary to pay their respects to Grumet; those unable to find seats massed in the back or leaned against the walls.

A well-liked soccer player with a toothy grin, Grumet, 17, of Roslyn Heights, died when the car he was driving north on Wheatley Road was struck by a tanker truck heading west on Old Country Road.

"Craig should still be here with us," Rabbi Michael A. White told the crowd. "He left us well before we were ready to let him go."

Friends and family described Grumet, an only child, as outgoing and considerate. He loved music and dreamed of becoming a lawyer, they said.

"He was truly an amazing child," said Randy Greenberg, a neighbor who watched Grumet grow up and coached him in baseball. "I asked my son, 'Was he the most popular kid in school?' He said, 'He was the most popular kid in Long Island.'"

Students from The Wheatley School and other area high schools arrived by bus and car, greeting each other with hugs and somber handshakes before the ceremony began.

"Everybody loved him," said Lindsey Steck, 15, a student at Jericho High School.

Two of Steck's classmates, Roy Tuccillo, 16, and Sohil Patel, 17, were also in the car with Grumet, but suffered only minor injuries in the crash, police said. A third, Kaveh Pazooki, 17, of Jericho, was hospitalized in fair condition at Winthrop-University Hospital in Mineola, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The service was emotional. Speaking of the pain parents Marc and Virginia Grumet experienced at the loss of their only child, White said, "When children die, God cries with us ... in the Hebrew language there are words for every kind of mourner but this."

At times some attendees rested their heads in their hands; others sobbed, especially when Grumet's friends and teammates took the podium.

Haltingly, the boys spoke of Grumet's sweet nature, of his generosity and sense of fun. Others drew laughter with stories about the soccer player's legendarily prodigious appetite and offbeat fashion sense -- he refused to cut his long hair and was rarely seen without his trademark sweatband, game or no.

Former teammates from Wheatley's varsity soccer squad, some wiping swollen eyes, sported white team sweatbands in tribute to Grumet.

His death has hit this 700-student school hard, said Doreen Bucci, a ninth-grade science teacher at Wheatley. "They've all known each other since kindergarten," she said.

Grumet was buried at Pinelawn Cemetery Monday afternoon. Contributions to a memorial in his name may be sent to The Wheatley School, 11 Bacon Rd., Old Westbury, NY 11568.