BEAUFORT, S.C. – On that most recent occasion when your emotions were stirred and your soul awakened, just what was it that your eyes saw?

Me first: My eyes locked onto a pair of brilliant white Adirondack chairs that sit at the first tee of the Secession Golf Club.

Enveloped in a respectful solitude, the chairs emit dignity and it is as if they are offering you a welcoming smile to this marvelous golf club. Thus was there a need to choke back emotions and calm the soul because the presence of these two warm and charming Adirondacks was understood.

Two Secession Club members – Jeff LeVeen, 56, and Stephen Roach, 36 – both of whom embodied all that is great about golf, especially the camaraderie and spirit that blanket the game and this club – were among 2,753 people killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11.

For years these chairs have been for them, so in spirit they can watch great friends and fellow members drive away to begin yet another round that will generate happiness and leave memories.

But so, too, are the chairs for those of us who are privileged to visit. So we don’t forget, which we sometimes do. So we savor each moment and don’t take what we’ve been blessed with for granted, which is easier said than done.

That the chairs struck a chord deep within is deserving of full transparency. Stephen Roach was from Scituate, Mass., not far from my humble little corner of the world. One of his four sisters, Cate, is a dear friend, and through the years it’s become easy to meet and know Stephen’s other sisters – Mary Joan, Geri, Patti – and his only brother, Rick.

Nearly 28 years ago, Rick joined Secession as a national member, at the urging of his younger brother, who had enlisted a year or two earlier. Stephen lived in New Jersey, Rick in Scituate and the younger brother assessed correctly that they’d play more golf together if they shared national memberships at Secession.

Golf united the brothers and that sentiment needs no introduction or explanation to a massive population of golfers who consume the game for friendships and its almost mystical pull it has on us. But when Stephen Roach and Jeff LeVeen, two of 658 Cantor Fitzgerald employees who were in the North Tower that fateful day, were killed in 2001, it would have been totally understood if Rick had given up his membership.

But he did not. “If I hadn’t met the guys I met down there, so many wonderful friends, I might have,” he said. “But I still cherish it and it’s a special place to go back to.”

Jeff LeVeen’s sons, Jeff Jr. and Andy, feel similarly and they return every year to host a memorial tournament in their father’s name.

Which leads us to the part of this story that is saturated in the human spirit. That is, Secession Golf Club members and their leadership have never forgotten Jeff LeVeen and Stephen Roach. On the contrary, they have kept the flames burning in a most impressive way.

Inside the Secession GC clubhouse, framed reminders of two members killed in 9/11 often give you pause to stop and read.

Poignant as the chairs are – and Rick Roach will tell you “that a lot of pictures have been taken over the years in those chairs” – the LeVeen and Roach homage continues inside the clubhourse. Photos are framed, as are the respective locker plates, and then there is the club’s signature acknowledgement – recognition of the LeVeen/Roach Scholarship Fund.

It started humbly enough back in 2002, with the goal being to help Beaufort-area students pursue educational opportunities. Grants ranging from $1,500 to $10,000 were awarded. But from a modest list of five recipients in 2002-03, the LeVeen/Roach Scholarship Fund has blossomed into the emphatic undertaking that is a testament to the Secession membership – and to the love it had had for Jeff LeVeen and Stephen Roach.

It is part of the Secession folklore that in the fall of 2001, with 9/11 still fresh on everyone’s mind, an annual club tournament was held. There was a moment of silence, bagpipes were played, and members drove golf balls into the marsh.

“We had to do something special,” Andy LaVallee told Golf Digest at the time. “Those guys were part of the fabric of Secession; they were very generous men.”

Like Roach, LaVallee has Massachusetts roots and joined the national club early. A man whose love of golf was surpassed only by his commitment to his faith, LaVallee said through tears back in 2001 that more had to be done to honor the memory of LeVeen and Roach. Bless his heart, he was true to his words, too, and behind LaVallee’s guidance the LeVeen-Roach Scholarship Fund of Secession Golf Club has done wondrous things.

A sidelight to this story is that just a short while ago, Jan. 23 to be exact, LaVallee passed away at the age of 69 in Florida. Andy’s legacy is enriched by a deep devotion to the Catholic Church, but it will never be forgotten by many how much work he poured into the LeVeen/Roach Scholarship Fund.

Just a few weeks ago, Rick Roach made a visit to Secession and as always, the golf course shined and memories were rekindled. Years ago, back when he was Stephen’s guest, Rick said he’d return to Scituate and talk glowingly about how much fun he had had.

“You should join,” his wife told him. “It would be you and your brother’s place.”

For a few years it was, but thanks to a remarkable membership whose devotion to never forget is relentless, it still is the brothers’ place. Just in a different way.

“I go visit ‘the wall’ (inside the club) and chat for a few minutes with him,” said Rick Roach, who will then make his way toward the first tee.

With a respectful nod and smile, of course, to The Chairs.