A flat TV screen displayed pictures of Luna and Phoenix, playing in a pool, inside an open cardboard box in their pajamas. It was hard to find one where they weren’t smiling.

Mr. Rodriguez, who at times stood in front of the line hugging family, colleagues and friends, was in constant motion. He paced around the dimly lit, packed room shouting “Oh! Oh, my God!” in Spanish.

His wife, Marissa A. Rodriguez, sat in the front row, the farthest seat away from the coffins. Mr. Rodriguez approached her and kissed her on the forehead and the cheek. Both looked at a collage of their twins’ pictures without speaking as they embraced. They could not look at the coffins.

“Oh, my Luna, oh, my baby! May God bless you,” cried Ms. Valerio, the twins’ paternal grandmother, in Spanish, as she knelt in front of Luna’s coffin. She placed her hand on the white veil close to Luna’s face, attempting to touch her.

Minutes later, Ms. Valerio knelt in front of Phoenix’s coffin, speaking to him in Spanish. “Oh, Phoenix! Oh, God! Oh, forgive us. Oh, I’m not going to be able to see you.”

Mr. Rodriguez has told police that July 26, after dropping his 4-year-old son at day care, he arrived around 8 a.m. at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx to work his regular shift as a social worker counseling disabled veterans.