Mary Siewert Scruggs didn’t get enough moments on this earth. But she filled them with love and joy, laughter and compassion, and she left an indelible mark on her family, friends, fellow artists, and countless students who benefited from her encouragement and discerning ear for comedy rooted in truth.

Scruggs, who headed the writing and education programs at Second City , collapsed and died at home late last Tuesday, January 11. She was 46.

And as is now the case in the age of our virtual town square, news spread quickly through Facebook. The tributes there and at Chris Jones’ “Theater Loop” all echoed disbelief that she died so young, and overflowed with warm memories. Even those who only met her briefly knew that Scruggs was special.

“She was one of the most positive human beings I have ever met,” says Second City CEO and President Andrew Alexander. “In the world of cynicism where we live in Second City , where there’s always a bit of an edge, she stood out. She was terrific at teaching young aspiring writers. She was very nurturing and had this innate ability to mentor people.”

Kelly Leonard, Second City executive vice president, had an especially close relationship with Scruggs. His wife, Anne Libera, who also works at Second City as director of comedy studies, had been roommates with Scruggs at Northwestern University.

“On a personal level, this was the woman who was going to take care of my kids if something happened to us,” says Leonard. “You just always assumed Mary would be there.”

Scruggs co-authored two books on improvisation—“Process: An Improviser’s Journey,” with Second City ’s Michael J. Gellman, and “The Second City Guide to Improvisation in the Classroom” with her sister, Katherine S. McKnight. She also won acclaim for her own stage writing. 1998’s What Every Girl Should Know: An Ode to Judy Blume, co-written with Susan Messing and presented at the Annoyance Theatre , became a cult hit. Scruggs also wrote or co-wrote three pieces that originated at Live Bait—the 2003 office comedy Karma, the 2004 musical Camp Nimrod for Girls (created with Martha Watterson, Sharon Evans, and composer Robert Steel), and her 2007 solo show, Missing Man, in which she learned to ride a motorcycle and joined a group of bikers on the annual Run for the Wall in honor of POWS and soldiers who are missing in action. The latter premiered at Live Bait’s “Fillet of Solo” festival, had a subsequent full run at Live Bait, and also went up at the New York Fringe Festival and the LA Women’s Theater Festival.

“She did not go into this experience with these motorcycle people to write funny stuff about them,” says

Scruggs on her motorcycle adventures.

Scruggs’ path in life seemed clear early on. Joanne Von Alroth, a classmate of Scruggs’ at St. Scholastica High School (who is now, coincidentally, enrolled in writing classes at Second City ) recalls meeting her on the first day of freshman year—Scruggs had entered the all-girl Catholic high school after attending Walt Disney Magnet School.

“This was in 1978, and the world was divided into Catholic school kids and ‘publics,’” says Von Alroth. “I asked her, ‘What is a magnet school?’ and she said, ‘It’s where they suck you up from all over the city like little pieces of metal and you stay stuck together until you graduate.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, I like this girl.’” The two remained friends over the years, but Von Alroth says, “This is how Mary was—I never even knew she was friends with Stephen Colbert. She didn’t keep her life segmented, but she didn’t dwell on that kind of stuff. When she was with a friend, she was totally about that time with that friend.”

Edward Thomas-Herrera met Scruggs when Evans suggested that he collaborate with her as a director on Missing Man. The two hit it off professionally and personally—Scruggs referred to Thomas-Herrera as her “gay husband” and he says he referred to her as his “straight girlfriend.”

“I’m glad that we started out as artistic collaborators who became friends rather than the other way around, because after a while we encouraged each other’s bad behavior and we wouldn’t have accomplished anything,” says Thomas-Herrera. And while he helped Scruggs figure out how to turn the Missing Man material (which she originally conceived of as a nonfiction book) into a solo performance, she helped him learn that “there were many ways of pacing a scene.”

Thomas-Herrera, who attended the memorials on Monday, says that Messing turned to him at one point and said, “You realize that with Mary’s death, there are at least three or four books left hanging,” referring to all the collaborative projects Scruggs had agreed to work on. Thomas-Herrera and Scruggs were writing a television pilot script together. “She had her Second City world and her theatre world in addition to that, and a huge circle of friends. She had all these plates spinning in all these different worlds,” says Thomas-Herrera.

But teaching was never just a sideline in Scruggs’ world, notes Leonard. “No one gets into comedy because they’re well adjusted. Mary was great with all the broken people who ended up finding their way [to the Training Center], and like a surgeon, she was able to help craft their voices and in making them funny, in some ways heal them.”

And Leonard, who hosted the memorial at Second City , says, “The one thing I took away from the memorial was the affirmation for individuals to use this loss as way to make a statement in their lives and tap into their true talent. If three people decide, because of Mary, to take a chance and do some good in the world, that’s important.”

At the memorial, the closing paragraph of E.B. White’s “Charlotte’s Web” served as perhaps the most fitting epitaph for Scruggs: “It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.” Mary Scruggs was both.

Scruggs leaves behind her husband, Richard, her 14-year-old son, William, and her siblings Gregory Siewert and McKnight. The family has requested that memorial contributions be made to the William Scruggs Trust Fund, 6351 W. Montrose, Box 234, Chicago, IL, 60634.