Kevin Bracken at FDNY Engine 54
Kevin Bracken with fellow firefighters at FDNY Engine 54
Kevin Bracken with FDNY Engine 23, August 23 1995
Kevin Bracken
Kevin Bracken with his firefighter brothers
Kevin Bracken with his firefighter brothers
Kevin with his department
Kevin Bracken with his wife Jennifer Liang on their wedding day at Sayville NY, 1996
Kevin Bracken with his father, Hugh, at Hugh's retirement, at LaSalle, Sayville, NY in 1994
Kevin Bracken on his wedding day, with his brother Billy, 1996
Kevin Bracken with Jennifer Liang (future wife) at his proby colation, 1993
Kevin Bracken with his wife Liang
Kevin Bracken and family
Kevin Bracken and family
Kevin Bracken and softball teammates
Kevin Bracken and softball teammates
Kevin Bracken and softball teammates
Kevin Bracken and friend
Kevin Bracken with friends and family
Kevin Bracken with friends and family
Kevin and Liang on vacation
Kevin Bracken and family
Kevin Bracken and friends
Kevin Bracken and friends
Kevin Bracken with family and friends
Kevin Bracken with family and friends
Kevin Bracken with family and friends
Kevin Bracken with family and friends
Kevin Bracken with family and friends
Kevin Bracken with family and friends
Kevin Bracken with family and friends
Kevin & Liang
Kevin with family and friends
Kevin with Liang and a friend
Kevin with his mom on his wedding day
Kevin with a friend
Kevin with a friend
Kevin Bracken
Kevin and Liang's Wedding
Kevin with family on his wedding day
Kevin on his wedding day
Kevin on his wedding day
Kevin with his parents on their wedding day
Kevin with his family on his wedding da
Kevin Bracken at the St. Patrick's Day Parade
Kevin Bracken Prayer Card
Kevin Bracken Prayer Card
Kevin Bracken Memorial Service
Kevin Bracken Memorial Service Booklet
Kevin Bracken
Kevin Bracken in his firefighter uniform
Kevin Bracken Rowing
Kevin Bracken
Kevin Bracken
Conseleya 9/11 Memorial
Dewitt 9/11 Memorial
Montclair State University 9/11 Memorial
East Newark 9/11 Memorial
Fair Haven 9/11 Memorial
Freehold Township 9/11 Living Memorial Tree Grove
Crescent Beach Park - Flagpole/Memorial for 9/11 Victims
Garrison Elementary School American Patriot Garden
Keansburg Beach Front Memorial
New York Times Portraits of Grief
His friends called it "the Bracken bounce." It was an expression they coined the day on the golf course when he hit a ball into the trees and it miraculously ricocheted back onto the fairway.
But it was not just on the golf course that Kevin Bracken, a firefighter with Engine Company 40 on Amsterdam Avenue and 66th Street, was known as a lucky guy. It was every time he looked for a parking spot on a busy street; or the day, two years ago, his car flipped over in a traffic accident and he escaped without a scratch.
His wife, Jennifer Liang, would say Mr. Bracken, 37, made his own luck. "He was the most optimistic person I ever encountered," she said. "He was never unhappy. Never without a smile on his face. Whatever situation he was in, he made the best of it."
Ms. Liang, who met her husband 11 years ago on the Long Island Rail Road, said that his credo was to live life to the fullest, "to seize the moment and make everything of that moment." He enjoyed being a firefighter, Ms. Liang said. But it was not fighting fires that appealed to him. It was the comradeship at the firehouse.
"He was a real people person," she said. An avid sports fan, who coached the softball team from his local bar, Mr. Bracken never would say "goodbye" to his friends. His parting words were always a kind of shorthand for how he believed you should live your life: "Drive fast. Take chances," he would say.
She added: "If somebody would have told him this would happen, he would have been, `Me? Are you kidding?' "
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