Rays of sun streamed through towering oak trees on about 100 people gathered on the lawn at Springfield Hospital Center yesterday. They attended to honor those who made the ultimate gift at the end of their lives.

"We applaud these generous acts of giving and remember their contributions in this memorial service," Ronald S. Wade, director of the Anatomy Board of Maryland, said during the 20th commemoration at the hospital in Sykesville.

The board honored the 552 most-recent donors who gave their bodies to science and reflected on the thousands who have done so in the past.

Family and friends clustered near the gravesite where ashes of their loved ones are interred for the brief ecumenical service.

Tears showed grief lingers for many survivors, but for most the stronger emotion was pride.

"What more can you do in life than help others?" said Mildred Smith of Rosedale who plans to follow her husband, Ellsworth's, example and donate her body. "You really can't do anything better for people. Doctors learn so much from these donations."

Amalia Alberti has made the trip from Rockville for the past four years to honor her mother, Louise Alberti.

"This is a place to touch base, and the ceremony makes my mother's gift more meaningful," she said. "It acknowledges what she has done. I am very proud of her. She was very giving in life."

Chalena Kuhn of Glen Burnie recalled how her grandmother Evelynn Laynn decided years before her death in November 2000 to be a donor.

"I think it was a wonderful decision," said Kuhn. "She always wanted her body to be used to help others. It helps us to know there is a gravesite here, too. She loved this area with its rolling hills."

Several medical students told the families of their appreciation for what they called "the ultimate donation." They decorated the monument with flowers and attended the service to show their gratitude.

Dr. Larry Anderson, vice chairman and course director in anatomy at the University of Maryland, called the donors "heroes in life and in death." The cadavers are his students' first patients.

"Our students learn so much from your family and friends," Anderson said. "They teach them more than I ever will."

Jordan Sager, 11, said he misses his father, Chris Sager, who died of heart failure nearly three years ago.

"All the people who had relatives and best friends came here today," said Jordan. "My dad donated his body because he wanted to help other people out."

Anna Ziegler still grieves for her husband of 55 years who died in July. She gently touched the granite monument, the single marker that denotes the gravesite. More than 20 years ago, Anna and Hubert Ziegler and their two daughters signed over their bodies to science.

"He did not do it on a whim," she said. "It was something he always wanted to do for whatever good would come out of it."

While medical students know nothing more personal than the age and cause of death of the donors, many said they felt a connection with the families.

"Of everything I have learned the past year, these donors gave me the most powerful learning tool," said Add Wilson, a first-year student at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda. "I feel a bond, a real connection to the people who are here."

Lee Allen, Wilson's classmate, said, "As far as a mechanism for learning, there is no substitute for the human body."

Many lingered after the service, among them Mildred Smith.

"It is so picturesque and peaceful here that I like to stay and look around," she said. "I will be here one day, too."