On Sunday afternoon, April 28, an overflow crowd gathered at First Parish Church in Brunswick to celebrate the life and legacy of Hilda Ives Wiley. Memories of that service will stay with me for as long as I live. But first, some context.

I first met Hilda’s father, Bob (known as “Bobby”), way back in the late 1960s. I was working in the Bowdoin Admissions Office, and he was hired as an admissions fellow. He exuded a spirit of goodness, grace and charm, and he still does today.

Bobby and his wife Ruth founded the Carpenter’s Boat Shop in Pemaquid, Maine, in 1979 (carpentersboatshop.org), and I joined the Boat Shop’s board of directors years later. I don’t remember a lot about those meetings, but I’ll never forget the amazing blueberry muffins that Ruth made for every meeting. Ruth was also famous for the loving hand-written notes she would always send to donors and volunteers.

I served as the secretary of the board of the Boat Shop for a few years, and when I stepped down, Bobby’s daughter, Hilda, assumed the responsibility. Hilda possessed all the fine traits of her mother and father. Always cheerful, always gracious, always thinking of the other person.

In the fall of 2002, my wife Tina had a serious heart attack, and it took six electric shocks to revive her. She was then transported to the Maine Medical Center, where Ruth was being hospitalized at the very same time for a brain tumor. Bobby and I hugged each other tightly, husbands sharing fears. (Ruth died in 2006. Tina is doing fine.)

Hilda had planned the entire service along with her husband Peter. Castlebay, a duo that plays hauntingly beautiful Celtic airs, opened the service with “Gathering Music.”

Tributes of family and friends painted a marvelous picture of Hilda: “a kindred spirit,” “up for anything,” “a consummate carer,” “a community builder,” “made others feel seen and heard,” and “lived life without regrets.”

She reminded us, as one speaker noted, that “grief is the price we pay for love.”

Because Hilda’s mother and paternal grandparents died at a young age, she knew that she herself might not have a long life. She lived for each moment, a good lesson for all of us.

Hilda’s death was especially poignant for my wife, Tina. Hilda was 46 when she died and her daughter Simone was 16. Tina’s father Walter Savell was 46 when he died and Tina was 16. (On a happy note, Simone currently serves as a server at Thornton Oaks, where we now live. She shares the warm wonderful spirit of her family.)

The entire service was both magical and meaningful, but two things stood out for me. A group of young people, many with tears in their eyes, sang an anthem called “Family,” accompanied by a guitarist and a violinist. The song ended with the phrase, “Let your love cover me, like a pair of angel wings, you are my family, you are my family.”

Hilda’s husband, Peter, managed to hold it together while giving a wonderful tribute to his wife. At the end of his talk he asked his three children — Simone (16), Ian (14) and Naomi (9) — to turn around and look at the mass of people who were there to honor their mother. I forget his exact words, but his message was: “These people are all members of your family. They will take care of you.”

That, too, is a lesson that Hilda Ives Wiley taught by the way she lived and the way she died. We are all in this together.

David Treadwell, a Brunswick writer, welcomes commentary and suggestions for future “Just a Little Old” columns.

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