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Thursday, August 22, 2002

By Steve Levin, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Fourteen-year-old Paul Pipolo died Sunday morning after struggling for three years with brain cancer.

	Paul Pipolo Struggled for three years with brain cancer.

Monday afternoon his parents picked out his cemetery plot. When they returned to their South Park home a few hours later, they found their 19-year-old daughter, Nicole, dead in her bedroom.

Paul's death had been expected. A week ago, his doctors had said there was nothing more they could do about the disease, a rare cancer called primitive neural ectodermal tumor. Nicole's was not.

He had planned ahead, down to stipulating that he be buried in red Converse hi-tops, black jeans, a blue flannel shirt and his favorite Pantera T-shirt. Paul spent the last weekend of his life listening to heavy metal music, hanging with his best friend Mike and with his family.

	Nicole Pipolo She complained that she felt anxious, that her heart was racing.

Nicole Pipolo, as was her custom, spent most of the weekend alone in her room writing, surrounded by her doll collection, some still preserved untouched in boxes. While she wrote different things, she liked poetry best. A number of poems were about her anxieties and struggles with depression, but she also wrote about transformation, about changing herself into something beautiful, much like the drawings of butterflies on her bedroom walls. She even had a butterfly tattoo.

Sunday night she complained to her parents that she felt anxious, that her heart was racing and her left chest and side hurt. She told her mother: "I just don't feel right."

But Monday morning she helped plan her brother's funeral with her parents, Cathy and Nick Pipolo, and the funeral home director. She picked the flower arrangement for his casket -- white and purple roses with baby's breath -- and decided that he should be buried with photos of the family's cat and dog. The Pipolos nixed her mischievous suggestion that a banner with his nickname, "Pipeline," be part of the service.

Still, her parents knew she didn't feel well. She looked pale. Although their daughter had prescription medication for anxiety and depression, the distress could sometimes overwhelm her. Just before her parents were to leave for the drive to Calvary Cemetery in Hazelwood to choose Paul's plot, Nicole fell to her knees with an anxiety attack.

		Funeral arrangements Paul and Nicole Pipolo will have a double funeral on Saturday. In addition to their parents and brother, Paul and Nicole are survived by two grandmothers, Carmella Pipolo of Venice, Fla., and Patricia Cooley of South Park. Visitation will be from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. today and tomorrow at David J. Henney Funeral Home, 6364 Library Road, South Park. Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Saturday at St. Joan of Arc Church, 6470 Library Road, South Park.

Since other family members were at the house -- they had arrived for Paul's services later in the week -- Nicole stayed behind.

Her parents had suggested earlier that she write a remembrance of her brother for the SPress, South Park High School's student newspaper. After all, Nicole was a 2001 graduate. But Nicole said she couldn't write about Paul because it always made her cry.

About 2 p.m., Les Holliday, chairman of South Park High's English department and sponsor of the SPress, visited the Pipolo home to talk to Nicole about her brother, who would have entered 10th grade this fall. Holliday spent 30 to 45 minutes interviewing her.

"I already miss him more than I can say," Nicole said about her brother in the interview. "He was my inspiration. Whenever I had problems and found life tough to face, no matter how down I got or how tough things were for me, Paul was always there for me."

When Cathy and Nick arrived home about 3:15, relatives yelled for them to hurry inside, that something was wrong with Nicole. A relative tried to give her cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but by the time paramedics arrived she was dead.

The Allegheny County coroner's office is conducting an autopsy.

Yesterday, family and friends from Florida, New York, Toronto and around Pittsburgh filled the Pipolos' small home on Terrace Avenue, bringing food and memories. The Pipolos' remaining child, 9-year-old Chris, bounced in and out of the house, grazing from the over-filled dining room table while focusing on his Game Boy.

Nick Pipolo, 46, recalled his older son asking him to shave his head, since chemotherapy and radiation treatments caused his hair to grow unevenly.

Separately, Cathy and Nick had joined Paul at his weeklong Boy Scout camping trip over July 4. Cathy was there initially, sleeping in a single tent while Paul and best friend Mike O'Leary, both members of Troop 215, tented together. The Pipolos were there because Paul's cancer affected his motor skills, making it difficult for him to walk or dress himself.

Cathy Pipolo, 45, fingered a necklace of hers that she will bury with Nicole -- it is the letter "C" that stood for "Cole," a nickname the two of them shared.

Paul clipped coupons; Nicole, who had attended cosmetology school, changed her hairstyle weekly. He collected knives and dreamed of being a Marine. She played softball and left encouraging notes at the breakfast table for her parents.

Talking about her children helped Cathy temporarily forget that she had lost her job last week. She worked at Ames, which announced it was closing all of its stores. Nick is a cabinetmaker with Guild Furniture Crafters.

At South Park High's graduation this year, Paul had been named the first recipient of the Eagle Courage Award for bravery and believing in the future. The school changed the name of the award this week to the Paul Pipolo Courage Award.

Recently, Nicole gave her mother a book titled "Original Poems by Nicole M. Pipolo." One line from a poem written last fall read, "One day I will be beautiful."

Steve Levin can be reached at slevin@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1919.