The brave, black-clad widow of an NYPD veteran killed on the job by an accused drunken driver fought through tears Tuesday in a heartbreaking farewell at the funeral for the love of her life.

Heroic Irene Tsakos was the last of four speakers at the Long Island service honoring her beloved spouse Anastasios, with a hush falling over the mourners as a relative helped her walk to the front of the packed Paraskevi Greek Orthodox Shrine Church. She spoke of their eight years as husband and wife, recalling the times they laughed together or how her heart would skip a beat at the sight of Tsakos.

“Lord, you have my angel now,” she concluded as the couple’s two small children sat in the front row of the service and a few fellow cops wept. “Please hold him near. I love you always and forever.”

Tsakos, in a house of worship filled with family and friends, fellow police officers, Mayor de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, choked up as she vowed to keep her husband’s memory alive for their 6-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son.

“He was the best father, a hands-on dad,” said the widow, speaking one week after her husband left their Long Island home for the midnight shift and never returned. “There was nothing he wouldn’t do for them. He told them funny bedtime stories that would keep them up instead of putting them to sleep.

“I would watch my husband playing with the kids and silently say to God, ‘Thank you.’ I had my other half, my best friend. ‘It’s you and me, babe,’ he always said.”

When the service ended, she was the last to bid goodbye to her spouse, kneeling over the casket before putting her face close to his.

The 14-year police veteran was recalled as a cop’s cop, an upbeat presence, a lover of motorcycles and helicopters at the sorrowful sendoff. The officer was killed April 27 on the Long Island Expressway, with the alleged hit-and-run driver charged with vehicular manslaughter, driving while intoxicated and driving without a license after her arrest in the shocking death.

The casket holding the Highway Patrol officer, topped with a blanket of flowers in the front of the Long Island church, was flanked by two large photos of Tsakos as a single lit candle burned nearby. Thousands of uniformed officers lined Pulaski Road in Greenlawn, L.I., for the funeral procession where fellow NYPD highway cops rode their motorcycles.

A fence along the route was decorated with Tsakos’ name and shield number.

His parents Stavros and Anna came in from Greece to attend the funeral celebrated in both Greek and English. Shea and de Blasio sat in the front row with the officer’s family, with the children taking seats on the laps of their relatives.

Shea announced the officer’s posthumous promotion to detective first grade, presenting Tsakos’ shield to his widow immediately after lionizing the officer as a role model who took just three sick days in 14 years on the job.

Earlier, Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elpidophoros paid tribute to Tsakos while noting the officer’s spirit endured among those who loved him most.

“In your righteous anger and bitter tears, Tsakos is present,” said Elpidophoros in his eulogy. “He is present in his mother and father . . . They brought him up to be a true patriot, and he did it in the greatest police department in the world, the NYPD.”

Mourners filling the church broke out in applause before the archbishop continued.

“We recognize in his death the faith of a life filled with love,” he continued. “We now have a guardian angel over all of us.”

Tsakos, 43, was catapulted 170 feet from the point of impact when struck by a Volkswagen Passat with Jessica Beuavais, 32, behind the wheel. Cops said the suspect’s blood alcohol reading was nearly double the legal limit and she allegedly acknowledged smoking marijuana prior to the fatal 2 a.m. crash on the Long Island Expressway.

Once the service ended, Irene Tsakos and her two children stood outside as her husband’s casket was placed into a waiting hearse as a bugler played “Taps.”

An NYPD officer then delivered the folded flag taken from the casket and presented it to the family as “America The Beautiful” played against a silent backdrop, with an officer hugging the widow, snapping off a salute and tousling the boy’s hair.

Police officers from around the country joined the NYPD in mourning the loss of their brother in blue in the horrifying wreck.

“My job is to stand up and tell you what a great cop Tsakos was,” said Shea. “He was. But Tsakos was more than that . . . He was the one who always asked, ‘What else can I do?’”