As the WTC death toll shrinks, the mini-obituaries continue in The New York Times, every day, tales of simple and extraordinary lives. We read them. Why? I know I feel a duty to read, as though I am honoring their sacrifice. There is more, though. What a person did with their life to make it distinctive and recognizable is a kind of triumph over the mundane. It says we are all worthy of mention, in The New York Times or in some cosmic version of it.

When my mother died last week, her death notice appeared but no obituary. She died in a nursing home, in her own personal disaster of dementia. That fact is but a speck in the story of her life.

Alone for her first nine years, with a depressed mother and an oft-absent father, Jane was sent to live in a convent boarding school when she was five. She didn’t last long; her spirit was far too great to be contained, even by the Sisters of Mercy. When her sister and brother were born, she gained life-long allies in an often difficult struggle.

From this inauspicious origin in Pittsburgh, PA, she built a life of style and grace in New York City. Before she left Pittsburgh, she co-directed the first gallery of modern art in that city. She brought John Cage and Merce Cunningham to western Pennsylvania and hung Paul Klee and Fernand Leger on white walls, illuminating a new way of thinking for many. At 19, she studied with Moholy-Nagy at the School of Design in Chicago. The Bauhaus became her life-long coda.

Later, as an advertising writer and creative director for J. Walter Thompson Co., these influences and her passion for Gertrude Stein’s sparse prose informed her work at every turn. She got to the heart of every message without frill, with wit and clarity.

A single mother for most of my childhood, she carved out a life for us that felt privileged, if only for her dedication to its pleasures, however small. Dinner was served on warmed plates. Hot chocolate was Droste’s, with lots of cream and sugar. We were made to feel our lives were special, to be envied, even when they weren’t.

With her third husband, the charm who would have been her life-long mate but for his early and final heart attack, she pioneered loft living in SoHo. She turned their meager investment in a former rag-bale warehouse into a bastion of life as art. The exposed pipes on the ceiling were painted vivid primary colors. The oversized window shades were hand-painted with abstract shapes in the same hues. Lacking the necessary permits for gas from ConEd, she cooked a now-famous whole salmon in the dishwasher for a party. It was delicious, and made a great story with which to regale her guests for years.

Later, as a grandmother, she cut a distinctive figure in the playground, sweeping through the iron gates with her extravagant capes and leather boots, two red-heads in tow, her own invented red head covered by a jaunty beret. My children remember her laugh best, a self-ignited roar of delight.

Her parties were legion and lively, full of sharp minds and free-flowing wine. At her funeral we tried to evoke her spirit with stories and song, but in the end, my aunt turned to me and said, “Something is missing.”

Something is. It is Jane.