George Llanes was a sensitive, studious child, the kind that classmates often teased. His mother, Eugenia, wanted him to have an outlet, a safe place to express himself, so as he approached the painful years of adolescence, she bought him a journal and encouraged him to "unburden yourself."

From that modest beginning, a writer was born. A few years back, after Mr. Llanes began working as a clerk at Carr Futures, he gave his mother a bound volume of his poetry. After his death, when Mr. Llanes's parents cleaned out his apartment in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, near their own, they found his poems everywhere.

Mr. Llanes, who would have turned 34 on Sept. 13, lived with his parents until recently. He was their only child and did not leave the nest until he took up smoking and decided to get a dog, both of which gave his mother allergy attacks. When he went apartment hunting and found one he liked, he told the landlady, "I have to talk to my mother first." The landlady repeated the exchange to Mrs. Llanes, saying, "That's when I knew he was a good boy."

Mr. Llanes's devotion to the dog, a pug named Mae Mae, persuaded him to rejigger his work schedule. He switched to a schedule of 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. from an ordinary one of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., despite a lifelong aversion to getting up early.

Had he been on his old schedule, she noted, "We wouldn't be having this conversation now."