The death of Sir Edmund Hillary is one that encourages time to pause and reflect on the passing of someone very special in our world. Hillary died Friday of a heart attack at the age of 88 in a New Zealand hospital. He will forever be known as the first man to climb Mount Everest, but the life he led and the accomplishments of his well-led life add up to so much more than that single, incredible feat.

Hillary and his climbing partner, Tenzing Norgay, a Nepalese Sherpa, conquered the 29,035-foot Everest on May 29, 1953, the second team of a British climbing expedition. After the first team was forced to quit its attempt just short of the summit, Hillary and Norgay set the route that led them to be the first to scale the highest mountain on Earth.

They stayed on the summit for only 15 minutes before concerns about their oxygen supply convinced them to begin the climb back down. Neither one of them had any idea about how the world would view their accomplishment, nor did they fully comprehend how it would change their lives. Hillary assumed it would be a big deal in the mountaineering community, but have little significance beyond that.

He couldn't have been more wrong. The world was captivated, and the two men were seen as more than just adventuring heroes; they became legend. Through the years, neither man would claim credit for being the first on the summit. Only after Norgay revealed publicly that Hillary was first did the lanky New Zealander admit that he led the way during the final ascent. He refused, however, to acknowledge that there was any special significance to whom was first, insisting they conquered Everest as a team.

They descended to a changed world. Hillary was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and Norgay was honored with Britain's second-highest honor that could be bestowed on a civilian. The world they knew before the summit had changed, but it did not change them, especially Hillary.

He remained modest and humble, but never lost his adventuring spirit. He continued to participate in expeditions, including a thrilling race across Antarctica. In 1962, he did something that rivaled his conquest of Everest. He created the Himalayan Trust and devoted much of his life's work to raising funds to benefit the Nepalese people. Through the trust, he funded and helped build hospitals, health clinics, airfields, and schools throughout the country. His "duty" to those who helped him also included raising funds for higher education for Sherpa families.

Hillary never sought recognition for his philanthropy, offering not only money but his boundless energy to his many Nepal projects. He returned to Nepal more than 120 times. On one trip in 1975, he lost his wife and daughter in a plane crash. Even that tragedy did not slow him down or curb his enthusiasm.

In 1998, in a speech to schoolchildren before planting endangered Himalayan oaks at their school, he continued to inspire and reveal his character. "I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it," he told the children. And so he did.

Throughout his life, Hillary never claimed to be anything more than an ordinary man with ordinary qualities. With all due respect to "Sir Ed," as he was fondly called by his friends, he was so much more than ordinary. The sum of his life, far beyond scaling Mount Everest, can only be described as extraordinary. And what made him extraordinary were not his accomplishments but who he was.

In writing about the final steps to the top of Everest with Norgay, Hillary wrote: "Awe, wonder, humility, pride exaltation these surely ought to be the confused emotions of the first men to stand on the highest peak on Earth, after so many others had failed." So, too, when reflecting on Hillary's life, they ought to be the confused emotions about the man himself.

There are those who might mourn Sir Edmund Hillary's passing as a time of great sadness, a dark and empty time when the world is a lesser place because he no longer is among us. Although it is true we will not see his like again, he leaves behind a legacy of humility, generosity and an indomitable spirit.

It is a legacy of a man who climbed so high that he brightened the world with hope, wonder, and the promise of possibility because he lived.

— Joe R. Howry is editor of The Star. He can be reached by phone at 437-0200 or by e-mail at jhowry@VenturaCountyStar.com.