Ardeth Wood was a loving sister, daughter, friend, scholar and so much more than just a 27-year-old University of Waterloo PhD student who went missing after leaving her family's Orl�ans home for a bike ride, as has been reported over and over again in the media.
Ms. Wood was a promising young woman who aspired one day to become a professor so she could share her enthusiasm and knowledge with others.
More than 600 mourners at Ottawa's Notre Dame Cathedral celebrated Ms. Wood's life one last time yesterday, remembering who she was, rather than what happened to her.
Much has come to light about Ms. Wood -- since she disappeared two weeks ago -- that help us to understand why she touched everyone she met.
"I always said she was the smartest person I ever met. There was never a question she didn't have the answer to. Whenever I needed guidance, I always went to her. I don't know where I'll find that now," her brother, Colum Wood, said.
A deeply religious woman, Ms. Wood was guided by her Catholic faith.
"Over the years, she told me many times that she was always conscious that she was fulfilling God's purpose for her life," her mother, Catherine, wrote in a letter to the Citizen last week.
"Gentle by nature, she was, however, independent in her thinking and firm in her Catholic faith."
Described by friends and family as independent and reserved, Ms. Wood, although shy, wasn't afraid to speak up during classes and share her thoughts, especially when she disagreed.
In July 1999, she wrote a letter to the editor in this newspaper, objecting to a column by George Jonas about pornography laws.
"Mr. Jonas argues that these drawings may relieve sexual tensions. But can we really trust someone who enjoys these things not to cross the line?" she wrote. "For society to function properly, each individual must concern himself with the interests of others."
At Carleton University, where Ms. Wood completed her undergraduate and master's degrees, her former professors remember her as being one of their brightest and most promising students.
Philosophy professors Wendy Donner and Diane Dubrule have seen thousands of students pass through their seminars and lectures over the years, but very few like Ms. Wood.
"I always felt that she was a future colleague," Ms. Donner said. "I have a lot of students that are excellent students in philosophy and really think things through, but I always felt with Ardeth she was doing more than just thinking things through, that she was actually taking them very much to heart. She was doing what I would call contemplating philosophical questions."
She wasn't just a student who excelled in her studies, they said, she was a woman who cared about others and was always looking for the good in people.
Ms. Wood loved philosophy; she loved to teach it, read about it and talk about it. She considered it the root of all issues, such as crime or politics, Colum Wood said.
Ms. Donner, who supervised Ms. Wood's master's thesis, entitled The Use of Myth in the Construction of Identity, described it as one of the most imaginative she'd seen.
"Usually students choose topics that are much more standard. Her topic showed that she really did want to contemplate the questions she was doing and not just sort of work through them with her reason."
In the conclusion of her 2001 thesis, obtained by the Citizen from the library at Carleton, Ms. Wood summed up her ideas:
"Myths are a way of telling your own story; the story of your experience, and of searching for answers raised by those experiences," she wrote. "Thus, they can be used positively in the realm of identity construction if those using them, be they groups or individuals, remember first, that myths reflect human experiences and not universals and second, that they do not provide final answers but are a way of searching for truth."
Ms. Wood continued her studies at the University of Waterloo, where she'd been a student for the past 21/2 years, working toward a PhD in philosophy. While her interests lay mostly in metaphysics, ancient philosophies and the truth in literature, she had not yet decided on the topic of her thesis.
Aside from her own studies, Ms. Wood was a teaching assistant, taught a couple of courses on her own and was active in the philosophy department.
She was co-editor of the graduate students' journal and was active in organizing the graduate students' conference, said Debbie Dietrich, the graduate student secretary at the University of Waterloo.
On the Web site ratemyprofessors.com, where students can rate professors and courses, Ms. Wood received top marks from all three students who filled out the form. "Helpful, informative, easy. I actually enjoy the class discussion," one student wrote.
At the University of Waterloo, professors and students are raising money for a scholarship in Ms. Wood's name to be handed out to a promising female graduate student in philosophy.
Some of her friends from Waterloo, who came to Ottawa to help in the search, said they looked up to Ms. Wood, admiring her uncanny ability to always have her work done on time.
"She's always so happy and always perky. It just seems odd this has happened to someone who is always happy and had good things going on around her," said friend Amy Keppler.
"She was doing well and keeping completely on track," Jill Oliver said. "If she was stressed out, she never showed it."
Despite being shy, Ms. Wood had a unique fashion sense. Her wardrobe consisted of some medieval style dresses and a dark vintage 1920s suit she bought at an old clothing sale.
At her funeral yesterday, copies of an essay, Liberty's Limits, which she wrote for a philosophy journal, were made available to mourners. So was a compilation of her favourite prayers and poems. (Copies of the prayers can be seen online at www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen .)
As part of the collection, St. Augustine -- a thinker who combines Ms. Wood's twin interests of philosophy and Christianity -- sets out an indictment of the type of person who may be responsible for her death.
"Woe to those who turn away from your light and gladly embrace a darkness of their own," St. Augustine, who lived in the fourth and fifth centuries, wrote. "They turn their backs on You and are bewitched by the works of the flesh, which are like their own shadows.
"And yet even then, the things that delight them have something of the radiance of your light."
Ms. Wood emitted such a light, a reflection, her family might say, of her faith in the light of God. Now, that light has been stolen from us -- and a city is in pursuit of its deadly thief.