Dennis L. Devlin: Her
Cheerleader
For
29 years, Dennis and Kathleen Devlin were man and wife,
parents to four children. In a house on a small hill in
upstate New York, they watched sunsets and laid plans to
grow old together.
But Dennis Devlin, a battalion chief for the New York
City Fire Department, is gone now, leaving Mrs. Devlin to
try and hold on to their bond.
So, Chief. Devlin's hobbies have become her hobbies.
Every morning, she's out on a three mile run, a habit she
never cared for when her husband was alive, but one she
hopes now will prepare her for a coming race that she is
planning in his honor.
"I can hear him sometimes telling me not to get tired,
pushing me," she said.
It is also because of her husband that no day passes
without Mrs. Devlin thumbing through one of the 23 photo
albums Chief Devlin labored over, for decades,
meticulously labeling and dating each photograph. (The
last photo he ever entered, taken three months before
Sept. 11, was one of him in a helicopter flying over
Lower Manhattan, staring at the World Trade Center.)
"We complained about him taking so many pictures,
everywhere we went," she said. "But having those albums
now is such a joy. We all look at them and think how
blessed we are that he took the time and that we were a
happy family."
.
