It has been two years since Mary Fuller died. She was my mother, and there are still some people around who remember her as the director of the Vineyard Haven Library from 1980 to 1990. She had stated long before her death that there was to be no obituary, and in grief and confusion, two summers ago I complied. But as time has moved on, I have felt the need to reach out to the Vineyard community, partly in response to many who have wanted more than our private West Chop service afforded.

I had the privilege of working on the Island from 1990 to 1999, and there are so many memories. The suppers she made, the wonderful conversation that always flowed, about matters great and small, locales near and far. Our times with her beloved cat Tisbury, so well treated by the wonderful vet Dr. Michelle Gerhard (now Jasny).

I can still see my mother at her desk, long before the library’s current incarnation, so willing to help the public, do research, assist in public issues. Her good friends Peg Cunningham and Barbara MacInnes were so helpful when she arrived full-time 30 years ago. I am sadly forgetting others she would want mentioned; certainly foremost to the end were her faithful friends Pam Shultz, Madeline Blakey Heath and Clara Rabbitt.

When someone is irreplaceable, well, they just are. She loved Felix Neck walks. It’s been about 18 years since we last did that together, and on June 10, 2008, my wife and I retraced her favorite path. She had grown up at Hillside, the Watson place in Plymouth, and her wonderful dad inspired in her a love of nature. And what better place than the Vineyard to fulfill this love.

She finally found her place on the Island, though her dad died after a few years, in the 1980s. I saw the birds sing for her so many times, just as they did the May morning, two years ago outside the window as her spirit departed this world. Time has stood still and been hollow for me since then. But there surely is a heaven above, and if anybody is there, she is.

There were four libraries she graced, starting when I was about seven. Long before the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, she was concerned about the challenged. She fought to put a safety railing that helped many in Southwick, Conn.; she became a mom many of my classmates valued when she worked at my grade school library, helping them with their research. When she left, it became a model school library. She truly was a leader.

Mary rose to the challenge and loved every minute of her time in the Vineyard Haven Library, and many reminders of her time there remain: the Shakespeare garden, the mural that graces the portico, and the lovely glass horse hanging in the window where the office was, a gift from the skillful Dunkl family, extraordinary Island artists. Thanks to Julie Hitchings for facilitating Mary’s collection of archeology books and replicas being sent to the West Tisbury School.

She could field strip a pistol blindfolded and fly a plane, and she saved her husband’s life when their car veered off the road after he fell asleep at the wheel. She was close acquaintances with John Hersey, Bill Styron, Carly Simon and Walter Cronkite.

Whenever I feed the birds or pat a kitten I smile, seeing her there. Some thought she was reclusive, but they will never know the loss and pain she had suffered by age 30. Some of it never got easier: a leg and ankle that had been broken and never healed properly caused her pain throughout her life. She lost her parents early, her best friend and her husband. She was alone but not lonely. And she spent eight years enjoying Havenside’s view.

To remember Mary Fuller is to celebrate a life well lived.

Keith Fuller lives in Middletown, Conn.