WORCESTER, Mass. -- One week ago, firefighter Brian Carroll followed his partner, Jon Davies, into the smoldering carcass of a vermin-infested three-decker on Vernon Hill.
Yesterday, Carroll proudly followed his best friend one last time.
For all of the requisite pageantry of yesterday's funeral service for Davies, the most poignant image was heartbreakingly intimate.
It was the sight of Carroll, who came close to dying with Jon Davies a week ago, cradling his partner's well-worn helmet -- still bearing darkened reminders of the fires he had fought -- as he walked alone behind an engine truck that delivered the 43-year-old firefighter's casket to the front door of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.
"Jon was more than my partner," Carroll said, struggling to keep hold of his emotions before a church packed with dignitaries and brother firefighters, "he was a good friend who invited me into his family."
Brian Carroll chose to remember the man with whom he shared his working life, as someone whose "big shoulders, big muscles and big appetite for life," were only exceeded by his "big smile and big heart."
Though Jon Davies stood 5-foot-9-inches tall, his partner said he was known throughout the department as a gentle bear, "who would give you the shirt of his back."
Long before he became one of the pillars of Worcester Fire's Rescue 1, Jon Davies' abundant heart and fearless spirit had been shown with the first life he saved.
Rob Davies told mourners who crowded both inside and outside the church that the first rescue his brother made came when he was 17 and saved a despondent woman who had thrown herself into an icy river.
"From that moment on," Rob Davies said, "my brother knew what he wanted to do with his life."
Upon those broad shoulders, Jon Davies proudly took on the responsibility of raising his three sons as a single dad.
Two of his sons, Jon Jr. and Michael, wore the uniform of this country to their father's funeral. The youngest, Adam, 14, wore a dark suit as he clutched his dad's Medal of Valor.
"You were everything to your father," Brian Carroll told them.
So much of the pain in Carroll's voice seemed tinged with a kind of impossible regret that he wasn't able to come out of those ruins with his best friend.
Jon Davies and Carroll rushed into the burning abyss of 49 Alexander St. a week ago, on nothing more than a rumor that someone was still inside.
Worcester fire Lt. Joseph Gaffney, the commanding officer whose frantic rescue efforts couldn't save Jon Davies, made it a point to pay tribute to Carroll from the altar yesterday.
The lieutenant wanted to make sure the world knows that in those desperate moments a week ago, when his own life was on the line, Carroll managed to make a "truly heroic" effort to help pull his partner's body out of a hell on earth.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
