WINCHESTER — Caitlin Clavette was a gatherer.

Relatives. Friends. Fellow athletes. Art students. She brought them together and cherished her time with them.

On Tuesday, loved ones from all walks of Clavette’s life gathered around her casket at St. Eulalia Roman Catholic Church in Winchester to mourn the 35-year-old art teacher who was killed last week by a storm drain cover that became airborne and struck her on Interstate 93.

The Rev. James W. Savage told mourners to imagine themselves somewhere else. Picture yourself, he said, on the rocky coast Clavette painted for a seascape featuring a lighthouse and set against a pastel sky.

A reproduction of the painting was published in the program for Clavette’s funeral Mass.

Speaking in the same church where Clavette was baptized, Savage created an alternative narrative for her sudden death by intertwining the painting’s imagery with the baptismal covenant that promises Christians eternal life.

In Savage’s story, the end of Clavette’s life is free of the horror of a bizarre highway crash. Rather, he told the congregation to envision themselves bidding Clavette adieu from the shore as she sailed to another coast to meet God.

“That’s her other Father,’’ he said. “God the Father.’’

The priest’s message came four days after Clavette was killed while driving to her job as an art teacher in Milton’s elementary schools.

She was headed south on the Southeast Expressway in Boston just before 8 a.m. Friday when the cover, which weighed more than 200 pounds, crashed into her black Honda HR-V, traveled through the vehicle, and exited the rear of the car.

The cover was for a storm drain inside the Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Tunnel.

The death spurred inspections of more than 900 covers and grates on I-93 from Somerville to Boston and inside tunnels in the metropolitan highway system.

Following the review, the state Department of Transportation said it found no major issues with the covers.

State Highway Administrator Thomas J. Tinlin said officials want to know what happened.

“We continue to search for answers,’’ he said in a statement Tuesday. “Not only so it never happens again, but also because we feel we owe it to Caitlin Clavette, her family, and her friends.’’

State Police are investigating what caused the cover to fly into the air and strike Clavette’s car. A spokesman Tuesday said investigators did not have new information to share about their inquiry.

The circumstances of Clavette’s death were not mentioned at her funeral Mass. Mourners were handed single white carnations tied with a ribbon as they entered the sanctuary, where a framed photograph of Clavette was displayed.

Clavette’s athleticism was noted in the funeral program with a painting she did of a bicycle. She sometimes brought her bicycle to school for children to sketch, said Janet Gilmore, whose daughter, Mia, 11, had Clavette as an art teacher in Milton.

Clavette’s brother, Andrew, highlighted her competitive side during his eulogy.

“When she finished her first triathlon, we asked her, ‘Cait, how’d you do?’ ’’ her brother recalled. “She said, ‘I did all right. I came in third.’ ’’

Laughter filled the church.

“ ‘I’ll train harder, get better. I should have won that one,’ ’’ Clavette’s brother recalled her saying.

Clavette grew up as the only girl in a clan of boys that included her brother and four cousins.

Andrew Clavette highlighted the antics his sister endured as the sole girl among a group of wild boys, including a ritual in which the group constructed holiday centerpieces from old turkey bones and another in which one cousin slipped shrimp tails in her food and drink.

“As we got older, Cait became the glue, hosting cousins parties and making sure we all stayed together,’’ her brother said. “We’re a small family, but the size was overshadowed by the close relationships that we had. Caitlin was the one who brought us together and brought out the best in each of us.’’

Mostly, Clavette loved to be among the friends she made from all facets of her life.

“What made Caitlin special is that she didn’t just want to keep those friends,’’Andrew Clavette said. “She wanted all of those friends to become one giant group of friends. And she succeeded in this.’’

As the hearse carrying Clavette’s body pulled away from the church for Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Arlington, that sea of friends followed behind.

Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @lauracrimaldi.