Timothy Brian Higgins, 43, grew up in Freeport and lived in Farmingville. A member of New York City Fire Department's Squad 252, he was last seen in the north tower. His remains were recovered within weeks.
Christopher Higgins, the oldest of three children, has just earned a master's degree in forensic psychology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan - a milestone he attributes to his father.
"I needed to take what I had been through and do something with it," Higgins said. "I'm not going to bring Dad back but if I can acknowledge what has happened ... and in some ways throw myself into it, it makes me feel like I'm doing something and moving forward."
Higgins had a conversation with his father six days before 9/11. "He had been on the job 22 years and became an officer in the last year-and-a-half. I asked him, 'Why did you wait this long?' He said, 'I think the best thing I can do is teach ... My number one goal is to get myself and everyone around me out alive.' That took on significance after Sept. 11."
Shortly after Timothy Higgins' death, the family found a scrapbook he had compiled of clippings about fires he had fought. On the first page were pictures of his wife, Caren, Christopher, 17 at the time, and daughters Catie and Cody, 15 and 14 at the time. Catie now teaches pre-school and Cody works in the fashion industry.
"That was the perfect embodiment of who he was," Christopher Higgins said. "It all started with family."
Handy around the house and cars, a good singer - he especially loved Frank Sinatra and doo wop - Higgins was the father to whom neighborhood kids gravitated. He loved his Harley-Davidson and a cold beer. And he had an abiding belief in doing a job well.
Christopher Higgins said people have asked him, "Don't you wish he had run away? That wasn't in his nature," he said. "I wish he were alive but he validated everything he had ever taught me about doing a job all the way through."
It's a legacy he carries today. "I believe in evolving. The scars don't go away. They integrate into your life."
New York Newsday, 2001