It was anything but a chance meeting between old acquaintances.

Garth Snow, a well-traveled NHL goalie now pledging profound and heartfelt loyalty to the New York Islanders, was in First Union Center in Philadelphia last Thursday.

	Garth Snow is 3-1-1 with a 2.71 goals-against average for the Islanders this season.

It had been six weeks since he'd stood his older brother Glenn's hospital bedside as leukemia took the last breath from his body. The experience left Garth a changed man -- open to emotions he pretended to never feel, passionately devoted to yet another new hockey team, but one that gave him all the time he needed to say goodbye to his big brother.

Now, just removed from throwing a 2-0 shutout at a few former Flyers teammates, Snow was enjoying the moment when Bill Barber walked up and extended a hand. Snow knew Barber from his Philadelphia days, when the Hall-of-Fame player was working as a minor-league coach with the Phantoms.

"He sought me out just to offer his condolences," Snow said. "It was really nice of him, you know? But I had no idea about his wife. I just wish I knew."

It is the way Barber wanted it, and the way Jenny told him it should be.

Two days after that meeting, lung cancer took Jenny Barber at the family's home in Cherry Hill, N.J. It was three hours prior to the scheduled starting time of a home game against the Minnesota Wild, a game Bill Barber would preside over as Flyers coach.

A memorial service and burial has been scheduled for Tuesday, allowing Barber the chance to go to Atlanta, where he will coach the Flyers against the Thrashers tonight. They will celebrate Jenny's life exactly two weeks shy of what would have been her 48th birthday.

"She's a Christmas baby," said Barber. "She was always a giver. Never a taker."

As he repeated to close friends, team officials and a few chosen players over the past couple of weeks, Barber stayed on coaching the Flyers because Jenny and his children had decided that's what they all wanted him to do.

He admitted that doing his job every day while his wife went from hospital to hospice and, finally, home to die last week helped him deal with her illness. Now he hopes it helps him through the grieving process.

One person who knows it can do just that is Snow, who took a leave of absence from the Islanders to be by Glenn's side for the last two weeks of his life.

"There will never be a day that I don't think of him," Snow said. "There are little things you miss ... just like hearing his voice."

What Snow didn't miss was quality time with his 36-year-old brother, something he's grateful to Islanders GM Mike Milbury for, something that offered Snow the chance to say everything he otherwise would have kept silent about.

"My brothers and I, we'd usually keep things inside, but this was good to talk about," said Snow, youngest in a family of four boys and a sister who is a Massachusetts state trooper. "When you see someone go through something like what my brother went through, battle like he did ... honestly, it's horrifying to see it. It's too bad something like this has to be what brings out how strong and close our family is. When it comes down to it, you'd do anything for each other.

"The best way to look at it is figure your best friends are the ones who are going to be at your hospital bed when it's time to go. His best friends that were there every day at the hospital, and those guys are now my best friends for life. Too bad it takes something like that for you to realize what's important in life. But I know it now."

	“	Different people deal with things like this differently. But I could see how important it was for him to keep this private and not involve the team. ”
		— Flyers forward Paul Ranheim on Bill Barber

From the time Barber's wife was diagnosed -- during a lost playoff series to Buffalo last April -- he knew Jenny was fighting a losing battle. Rather than burden friends and colleagues, Barber drew in daughter Kerri, 27, and son Brooks, 24. Together with their mother, they decided this fight would be a waged with as much dignity and as little disruption as was possible.

It is why Barber was at the office every day since the start of the season. It is why he coached that game against the Wild against the advice of team officials. It is also why an emotional Barber marched into the First Union Center media lounge immediately after that 5-1 victory Saturday evening.

A public explanation was in order, even if none was really needed.

"Jen battled cancer here for a while and lost the battle, and I just wanted you to know why I'm here today," Barber said. "From my family's standpoint, Jen and my kids, (it was important) that I be here. I felt the same way for our players. I wanted to be here for them. It's been a tough while here for the last few months. But with everything said and done, our family is very strong and we're very comfortable with today."

Barber made no concessions to the job while everyone around him tried to not cast judgements about that.

"That's just the way Bill is. He didn't want it to be a distraction," said Flyers winger Paul Ranheim. "Different people deal with things like this differently. But I could see how important it was for him to keep this private and not involve the team.

"No matter what you do, people always are going to second-guess you and people are always going to have their own ideas of how you should be or how you should conduct your life. Billy felt strongly that this was the way he and his family should deal with this loss."

Snow knows it's impossible for anyone to predict how they could handle watching a loved one die. For him, it was all about reliving fresh memories.

"I'm just like any other brother," Snow said. "I'd probably never tell my brother I love him and kiss him on the lips. Tell him I was proud of him, tell him I was sorry for slashing him on the leg when we played street hockey.

"Our family was always like that -- street hockey, wiffle ball, video games. It would always turn into a battle. My mother was always breaking up fights. It's weird to tell him you were sorry for all those times. I'm surprised my mother's not insane from all that. But that's the stuff that makes you bond as a family."

Snow had one last bonding chance with Glenn in August. Having battled through chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant, he was healthy enough to go on a golfing trip with Garth to Myrtle Beach, S.C.

"That was the best thing I ever did," Snow said. "But when we were down there he said, 'Garth, if I have to go through this whole thing again, if the cancer comes back ... there's no way. I'd rather just go off to a quiet place and just go. I could never do this again because it's so unbearable.'

"But at the same time, right down to the last day, we'd ask him how he'd feel, if he wanted to keep fighting. He kept saying he could beat it. That instinct of wanting to fight for your life kicks in. It's a little different than standing in the tee box telling your brother you can't go through it again, but when you're in that hospital bed fighting for your life, your instinct is just to keep battling."

Shortly after they returned, so did the cancer. Glenn slipped into a coma on Sept. 10. On Oct. 22, his vital organs shutting down, he died.

	“	I almost felt guilty. I was able to escape, be on the ice with the guys. ”
		— Garth Snow

In the interim, Snow drove back and forth between Long Island and Boston, where a vigil was kept by Glenn's bedside.

"I almost felt guilty. I was able to escape, be on the ice with the guys," Snow said. "But my family had to be there every day through that whole time. What a grind they must have been going through for two months. I was really only there for the last two weeks."

But he was there when it counted most, giving his brother rubdowns on limbs rendered useless; talking to him, even though a ventilator enabled Glenn to only communicate with a nod or shake of the head.

"At one point," Snow said, "I told him, 'All these years, you finally realize what it would take to get me to rub your feet.'"

By the time Glenn was gone, the bond was complete.

"For a week to 10 days afterward, it feels like you got hit by a train," Snow said. "We kind of knew what was in store for him, so we were a little prepared, but when it happens, you're never fully prepared for it."

All anyone can do is try to prepare for it the best, or only, way they know how.

"I'm going to miss not having her," said Barber, who had been with Jenny for 32 years, since the pair were high school sweethearts. "The toughest thing will be not going home to a lady who was my love and my partner for over 30 years. Even though we had a lot of different views or different interests, they always say opposites attract. We did.

"We got along so well, and we shared our moments together with the kids. We lived our lives together, around our children."

They said goodbye the same way.

Rob Parent of the Delaware County (Pa.) Times is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.