They waked Farrell Lynch last night. His family, friends, and surviving work colleagues paid tribute. Today there will be a memorial service in Huntington, Long Island, to celebrate the life of the 39-year-old married man with three children, aged between seven and 11.
His family knows he won't be coming home. They don't have his remains but they accept that he is gone. They also know that Farrell's younger brother Sean, will not return either. Sean (36) was married as well, with a three-year-old child and his wife is seven months pregnant. A memorial service to mark his three-and-a-half decades will take place next week in New Jersey.
The Lynch brothers, Americans born of Irish parents, perished in the attacks on the World Trade Centre. They worked for the Wall Street bond traders, Cantor Fitzgerald, who lost more than 700 of their staff - their "family" as the company's chief executive described them. Both men worked on the 101st floor of the first of the twin towers to collapse, in the aftermath of the hijacked plane crash.
Their first cousin, Fine Gael TD for Sligo-Leitrim Gerry Reynolds, says the family "doesn't have any hope at this stage". Gerry's mother, Tess, and the Lynchs' father, Farrell, are sister and brother. The TD was on holiday in the US, had met them at the weekend and had arranged to see them for lunch at the Twin Towers on Tuesday.
"Just as I was walking towards it the Trade Centre I saw both towers collapse, but I walked on," he said yesterday. "Everyone was coming my way and I didn't know what was happening. Then I saw people rushing towards me, all covered in white dust." They were all running and "I turned and ran as well". It was an "eerie experience. The silence after the collapse was eerie, so eerie," he said. Mr Reynolds, Fine Gael's western development spokesman, was speaking at the Irish consulate on Manhattan island in New York.
He knows the city well after more than four years working in a bar there and studying for a masters in economics at New York University in the 1980s. New York was a city he felt comfortable with - until now.
His voice filled with emotion, the Leitrim-based TD said he knew his cousins very well. "I know there are so many people who have American relatives they see occasionally. But we were close. I met them at least once or twice a year and we kept in contact on a regular basis." In fact, Farrell and another brother, Ciaran, were due to travel to Ireland tomorrow and the cousins all planned to play some golf.
Farrell and Sean's family have done all the necessary things, like presenting DNA evidence such as hair, in case there is a chance of locating their remains. But there has been "no word", says their Irish cousin.
