The family of Boston firefighter Robert “Bobby” Kilduff Jr. gathered Friday inside Rescue 2 headquarters in Roxbury, where they remembered the 43-year-old after he died in the line of duty the night before. His death came after he fell from a third-story window while fighting a three-alarm blaze last Saturday.

For Hanna Jane Kilduff and her son Mason Kilduff, the gathering turned a station house into a place of grief and pride at the same time. Hanna Jane said her husband was the kind of man who “didn’t have to know you to want to help you,” while Mason said his father was often the firefighter helping organize honors for others killed in the line of duty. The family said they had always known the dangers of the job, but still never expected Bobby Kilduff to be the one lost to it.

Kilduff was rushed to Boston Medical Center after being severely injured in the fall, then succumbed to his injuries later that night. His family’s public remembrance on Friday gave Boston a clearer picture of the man behind the badge: a veteran firefighter whose son said he always left conversations feeling better than when they started. Mason, who is stationed in North Carolina with the Marines, said his father immediately booked a flight south when Mason had a “tiny little medical emergency,” a detail that captured the same instinct to show up that his family described over and over.

Hanna Jane said she could not even say she wished he had not chosen firefighting, because he loved it so much. She called him a hero beyond the firehouse, as a coach, a mentor and a father. Mason added that he thinks first about the lives his father saved, including the ones Bobby never knew about, saying he was the kind of person someone could go to and walk away from feeling better.

The tribute came with a scene Boston firefighters and neighbors have already made at the station: a wall near Rescue 2 headquarters covered with colorful flowers, signs and photos. Firefighters stood near the Rescue 2 truck to support the family after they spoke, a quiet reminder that the grief at this Roxbury station now belongs to the department as a whole. What remains unanswered is whether officials have released any further findings about the fall or the fire itself, a gap that keeps the focus, for now, on the man and the loss.