When Kevin S. Cohen was 4, his family moved to a new house in Edison, N.J. Rather than being daunted by the move, little Kevin, the youngest of two boys, set out to make new friends. Soon, he was standing at his front door pointing to all the houses where he had made a friend.

"He would point with his little hands and say, `That's my friend across the street, and that's my friend from next door, and that's my other friend from that house,' " said his mother, Marcia Cohen. "And then, he never changed. He was like a mother that way. You know how children leave home and then it's the mother who brings them together year after year? Well, it was like that with my son. He had friends from all over. He was very compassionate, a lot of fun. He loved people, and people loved him back."

On Aug. 17, Mr. Cohen, 28, who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, took his parents to dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary. Mrs. Cohen was reluctant at first because she figured he would be tired on a Friday, after working all week. But he insisted.

"Kevin was so proud that he could take us to a nice place like that and take out his credit card and pay by himself," Mrs. Cohen said. "He thought we had never been there before, but we had. We just didn't tell him."