Michel Adrian Pelletier

Private Language
Since Sept. 11, there's been a mystery in the Pelletier household. "Tigi, tigi, tigi," 2-year-old Sydney says. "Papa said, 'tigi.' "

Her mother doesn't know what it means. It is a private word that Sydney's father, Mike A. Pelletier, made up with her. "They developed all these inside jokes," his wife, Sophie, said. Mrs. Pelletier can relate; she and her husband had a trove of their own private jokes. "He was my laughing buddy," she said.

From the night they met at a Manhattan party, the couple also had their own secret language: French. She came from France via Los Angeles. He was a former professional hockey player from a tight-knit family in Quebec. They fell in love "almost immediately," marrying in 1998 in a tiny glass chapel jutting over the Pacific Ocean.

Mr. Pelletier, 36, commuted from Greenwich, Conn., to work as a commodities broker for Cantor Fitzgerald — "but his priority was his family," his wife said. "He ran home every night to be with us." Now, she aches for the little things. "I miss going to Costco with him," she said. "Everything we did was fun."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 16, 2001.


MICHEL ADRIAN PELLETIER, 36, of Greenwich, Conn., was a commodities broker for Cantor Fitzgerald. A friend called Pelletier after seeing the World Trade Center attacks on television. "I was telling him things I was seeing on TV which he was relaying to other people in the room," Randy Christ said. "Even at that point it seemed like he was in charge." Pelletier called his wife, Sophie Pelletier, to tell her he was trying to get fellow employees out of the building and that he loved her. "I feel like my heart and soul have been ripped away," she said.