So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a shock that stories involving births, deaths, and marriages have been the ones in 2013 that have often touched our readers most, were shared widely on social media, are read and commented on and continue to generate discussion for days after they’re published. All rather appropriate for Canberra’s 100th birthday year.

But it’s not the raw, final, or emotive acts themselves that draw readers in – it is the people, and the stories behind these major life milestones that capture the capital’s collective imagination, or that shared spirit of human understanding.

For many families, 2013 will be remembered as the year they shared their story with the world. To begin with there were the 22 centenary babies, born on March 12, who were awarded special medallions for sharing Canberra’s 100th birthday – despite the fact, as patron Sir William Deane pointed out, it was their mothers who put in all the effort.

Parents might argue that every birth is a miracle, but it was a year when some Canberrans really pushed the boundaries of what’s possible when it came to bringing new life into the world.

Doctors thought it would be impossible for Victoria Taber to have a child when, aged just 29, she was diagnosed with lung cancer (despite never being a smoker), had to have a lung removed, and go through multiple rounds of chemotherapy back in 2009. But 2013 was the year she proved them wrong, when baby Archie made his way into the world – a birth even her doctors put at one in a billion.

It wasn’t just mums defying all odds to become parents, either. Baby Noah Hall was welcomed into the world in 2013 after spending 18 years on ice. His dad, Steve, was a fit, healthy 14-year-old when lymphoma struck, and he was forced to make a decision about freezing some sperm should he want to become a father later in life.

''It's been a long journey. There were times when I wondered whether I would turn 18 and get to go out and enjoy a drink with my mates, let alone have a beautiful wife and family,'' Mr Hall told The Canberra Times in November, weeks after Noah’s birth.

In a federal election year, not even the births register could escape politics in Canberra. Just days out from the polls, then ACT Liberal senate candidate and now Senator Zed Seselja was forced to take a short break from the hustings for the birth of his fifth child, Grace.

But one of the most touching births of the year was in a story that also involved a death, and the possibility of a wedding. In a year when gay marriage dominated headlines, women’s basketball legend Carrie Graf chose to speak about her own story of love, parenthood and family.

Graf told The Canberra Times of the moment she whispered in her father’s ear days before his death that she and her partner Camille Chicheportiche were expecting a child.

"He could only just speak,'' Graf wept, recalling the final moments with her father Richard, who fought non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma for 28 years.

Her one child turned out to be twins, and Graf wanted to share her joy with the world not to highlight her sexuality, but to challenge the world’s definition of what makes a family.

"Canberra's accepting of a lot of things, there's an openness about difference. There's all sorts of different families. There's wonderful families that have adopted kids from foreign countries and a lot of gay parents ... this is our family and for us it's completely normal,” she said.

As much as 2013 was a year of birth and new life, it was also a year when the capital farewelled some of its better-known residents.

In February business leader and “giant of the town” Chris Peters passed away at the age of 63, following a 19-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Tributes praised the quiet but hard-working Samaritan, who was not only head of the Chamber of Commerce for many years, but also worked with youth at risk and helped Canberra’s recovery from the 2003 bushfires.

No less recognisable, but perhaps significantly less well-known was Lindsay Mitchell, stalwart of one Civic intersection where he’d dutifully washed windscreens for change since 1990 until his death late in 2013. It wasn’t until after he died that Canberra even knew how to spell his first name, let alone discover the surname of the man known simply as Lindsay the window washer.

He was 47 years old when he died in November, six months after making contact with his family for the first time in years, and just a month before he was due to be reunited with his brother and sister. The outpouring of grief from Canberra was spectacular – even Chief Minister Katy Gallagher paid tribute to Lindsay, proving how touching he’d been in life, and how compassionate Canberrans were in memorialising his death.

‘‘He was a hard-working and kind man and my children and I always looked forward to getting one of his windscreen washes whenever we saw him ... he will be missed,’’ Ms Gallagher said.

It wasn’t just the lives of Canberrans that touched the capital through the year. The passing of Hollywood actor Paul Walker was one of the top trending Google searches in the ACT for the year, while Nelson Mandela's death was marked not just in statements from those lucky enough to know him, but even by a single rose placed by his signature on the green room wall in the Australian National Unviersity’s Llewellyn Hall.

If there was one death that touched the capital more than most, it was the passing of Daniel Paton.

Daniel, aged 27, had been diagnosed with melanoma in 2012, and in July 2013 was preparing to spend his last days of life in Calvary Hospital. But Daniel had one last wish: he wanted to marry his girlfriend and soul mate, Ashlea Hanson.

The couple expected a simple bedside ceremony, but after revealing their wish the hospital staff rose as one to deliver a memorable wedding complete with a dress for Ashlea, a cake, and even a videographer, all pulled together within 18 hours. Just a few days later, Daniel died.

But the memory and emotion of his wedding were shared with all, and helped fulfil another of his dying wishes: to raise awareness about melanoma.

It wasn’t the only wedding that the ominous shadow of cancer failed to ruin. In a year when actress Angelina Jolie revealed she had a preventative double mastectomy, stories of brave fights against breast cancer emerged, like that of Kim Wiggins, who married in 2013 after beating breast cancer, surrounded by her sister and her wedding planner who also had double mastectomies.

There were at least 31 other marriages that defied all odds in Canberra this year – albeit in far less life-threatening circumstances. And it wouldn’t be a complete wrap of the year’s births, deaths and marriages without mentioning the birth of hope, the death of legislation, and the rapidly-pulled together marriages of 31 same-sex couples who took advantage of a small window when they could legally be married on Australian soil.

The ACT became the first jurisdiction to pass a same-sex marriage bill in October, and for a total of five days in December gay couples could legally tie the knot in Canberra before the legislation was overturned by the High Court.

The wedding bonanza began at 12.01am on the first permissible day with Alan Wright and Joel Player, who were left in tears and broken-hearted days later when their union was ruled invalid.

“I’m proud of what me and the other couples have achieved, but mostly just I don’t understand why they can’t just see past it, that it’s about love and hope," Joel said after the High Court ruling.

But rather than the end, the couples themselves, their supporters, and a large crop of Australia’s politicians at both a state and a federal level have vowed to make 2013’s week of rainbow weddings just the beginning.

"[The] ruling from the High Court was about legal technicalities – it was not about the morality, the common sense or the human importance of ending marriage discrimination," ACT Greens MLA Shane Rattenbury said.

"This is an issue of civil rights for Australians, and in 20 years’ time, people will look back and wonder why anyone stood in the way of equality.”

As a new year is born, so too is a new page of births, deaths and marriages for Canberra – who knows what 2014 might hold.