What sense does it make to attend a memorial service for someone you hardly know? I found out for myself a few weeks ago when I went to a liturgy for a woman named Nancy.

Nancy’s husband, Bob, was a college classmate of mine, itself a good reason for my presence in the church. He died long ago ─ in 1972 ─but I still recall him as a fellow student with whom I had much in common.

Dorothy, the minister, began the service by recalling the telephone call she had received from Nancy a few weeks before her death. It led to a close relationship that Dorothy now treasures.

“To be in her presence was an enormous gift,” says the minister; “We became friends for life, no matter how short.” And she added, “What struck me about Nancy was her grit and her grace.”

In the year of her husband’s death, Nancy was only 41 and had three children to bring up. For a time, she planned to enter law school, but ultimately decided against beginning a career that might interfere with the care she wanted to give the children.

Instead, she earned a master’s degree in education and later caught on in the world of business. This led to a long and satisfying career in human resources within a large corporation.

Her own upbringing in Newton had featured close friendships. Nancy was one of four neighborhood girls who were pals. One of them, Barbara, shared fond memories of youthful adventures and good times together.

Nancy’s college years meant much to her, providing value for the rest of her life. Habits instilled in her by study and learning would prove lasting, as would the friendships that she first formed in college.

The greatest sustaining force in her life, according to the minister, was “her awareness that her children and grandchildren loved her unconditionally.” Receiving them at her summer house in New Hampshire gave her special pleasure.

Of her role as grandmother, one of her children, Beth, drew laughter by saying of Nancy: “She fancied herself Mary Poppins and Dr. Spock rolled into one.” Grandmother, she added, would interfere only when matters of health and education were at issue. However, her daughter recalled that the latter two subjects “were never discovered to have any limits.”

At age 69, Nancy moved from a suburban Connecticut setting into Manhattan. There she engaged in volunteer activities and enjoyed the arts. A classmate named Ruth remembers that Nancy “could not stand the current government in Washington.”

More positively, when she was terminally ill, Nancy wrote of wanting “a better life for the world’s unfortunate people.”

These notes about one woman’s life and death have taken shape from the intermittent jottings of this journalist. Their obvious incompleteness fails to indicate the full scope of that life with its accomplishments and its trials.

Looked at from one angle, this record suggests a woman who had it all. However, that did not happen all at once. As one friend of Nancy observed about her and some other women of the era, “We were the lucky generation; we could have it all, but sequentially.”

Nancy’s legacy to her family and friends stands out boldly. Her love for them, her enthusiasm for life, her appreciation for beauty ─ these are gifts that they treasured in her and will continue to value.

Even without knowing her, I felt moved by hearing about the many facets of a life eagerly lived. In fact, at various points in the service I was stirred by the varied revelations of Nancy’s character. Her daughter Beth has learned from her mother’s example that “life’s circumstances define us only up to a point.”

In accepting full responsibility for a still young family after her husband’s untimely death, this woman showed strength of heart and soul. It was reported that she chose not to marry again because she wanted her children to be formed by herself without the perhaps problematic influence of a stepfather.

It’s hard to grasp the meaning of a life before its end. Only from the perspective of the complete span of years can one appreciate the shape of that life.

The cultural anthropologist, Mary Catherine Bateson, speaks of the need many modern women have discovered for “composing a life.” In a book that takes this phrase as title, she writes of working “by improvisation, discovering the shape of our creation along the way, rather than pursuing a vision already defined.”

Elsewhere Bateson suggests that “personal life no longer proceeds by straight lines but requires adjustment and exploration.” This voyage of discovery is what I came to see in Nancy’s life as she faced a series of challenges.

Obviously, a memorial service is not sufficiently long or detailed to convey a  person’s life in its totality. However, it delivered enough for me and others to appreciate the beauty of one woman’s life lived ardently and fruitfully.

Richard Griffin