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My brother-in-law Michael Ruffolo died from injuries from a car crash five years ago. He made it to the hospital and with family gathered near his intensive care bed, he left this earth.

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To many in our family, the ditch on Illinois 38 is where he was last alive. Add to that his friends and family often pass the spot where his SUV came to rest, and many people could understand why our family felt a need to mark it in his name.

Before we even planned the funeral, I approached my father about constructing a wooden cross -- with his name, dates of birth and death -- to erect on the site.

The cross is gone now, but for many months, it served as a place family and friends would visit, often leaving mementos. Ironically, we took the cross down after another car careened off the road at that spot and crashed into the cross, breaking it.

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Patrick Fanning of Elwood planted this private flower garden memorial in honor of his mother, Lois, after she passed away. Patrick lives with his father, James, who appreciates the memorial because it stirs up happy memories of his wife, whom he was married to for 57 years.
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Today, nearly five years later, we don't need the cross to remind us of Michael's life; he lives in our memories. However, that cross was an integral part of our grieving process.

Privately

Lois and James Fanning were together for 57 years, and they lived in their Elwood home for 47 years. In 2002, Lois died in her sleep, next to James.
"Fifty-seven years, you can't even remember where you argued or called names or anything like that," James said.

These days, James still gets teary-eyed when he talks about Lois. Paper-clipped to the lamp on the table next to his favorite chair is a photo of James' favorite memory of Lois.

"She's laughing at me," he jokes.

When he is really having a hard day or something is bothering him, he talks it over with her.

Tom Barkauskas, director of social and spiritual services for Joliet Area Community Hospice, said that is not unusual.

"We always try to assure people that it is very normal to talk to people who have died," he said. "When someone dies, the relationship with that person does not die."

Most of James's home is a memorial to Lois. Family photos adorn the walls, and James has not been able to bring himself to discard her belongings.

A formal memorial to Lois is located in the back yard of the Fanning home.

"It helps bring back memories," James said of the memorial garden his son, Patrick, planted in his mother's honor.

Patrick, the youngest of three, wanted to find a way to remember his mother.

"I just wanted something to remember her by," Patrick said. "When I am going through a tough time, I can go out there and water the flowers and pull the weeds and say, 'Mom, what's going on here, help me.'"

Publicly

Jacquelyn Quiram can relate to the feeling of missing a loved one every day. Quiram lost her best friend, Elizabeth, suddenly when she was hit by a car in 2003. Desperate to mark the spot where Elizabeth died, not only in her honor, but to warn others of the danger of that area, she set out to find a memorial cross.
"There were no crosses available to purchase, and what I had said was, at that point in time in your grief, you are not in the mood to go shopping or build a cross yourself," she said.

So a relative made one for her; she personalized it with Elizabeth's photo.

The experience led Quiram to start Roadside Memorials, which she runs out of her Shorewood home.

"I just thought it would be a ministry to reach out to these people in their time of grief," she said.

Although Quiram does charge for the crosses, she tries to keep costs low, just enough to cover materials and time.

She sometimes is bothered by people who think memorials don't belong on the road where others can see them.

"I have to say to them that until it happens to them -- and God forbid that it does -- they really should not put any kind of opinion out there," she said. "It's a step in the process of grief."

Speaking only about the grieving process, Barkauskas agrees.

"We want to be able to express that in a public way, that other people can grasp that as well," he said of public memorials. "I think that when there is a tragedy, we're looking for meaning, so you feel the need to do something, that's where memorials come from."

Elizabeth's memorial cross has brought comfort not only to Quiram, but to Elizabeth's son Andrew Perez of Rockdale.

"I would say, just with facing the truth and everything, it just helped me," Perez said. "We turned kind of a terrible thing into a good thing to help other people."

Elizabeth lives on because Quiram thinks of her every time she makes a new memorial.

"Every cross I do, I pray over it when I am making it, I think about Liz," she said.

Quiram often is contacted by family members; sometimes she contacts family or friends about the deceased. Such was the case when Joliet police officer Jonathan Walsh was killed.

"It's my own personal feelings, from my heart that I know what the family is going through, and I know what their friends are going through," she said of that effort.

Roadside memorials, according to Barkauskas, provide a public outlet for mourning.

"People are trying to say something to the world, and that is that these people were important and that their lives really mattered," he said. "Somehow it makes you think, you empathize."

Even more so than the crosses along the side of the road, memories and stories posted on the Internet provide an outlet for grief that anyone can share.

The World

Obituaries, like everything else, have become more technologically advanced. Through a partnership between The Sun Times and Legacy.com, when a person dies, family members and friends can view the obituary online and can leave memories of their loved one for others to read.
John Cary, senior director for online operations for Sun Times News Group said the media group's partnership with legacy.com, has spanned a number of years.

"We'd been talking with them off and on since they started, liked their product and finally got into it," Cary said. "It's a unique product that allows people to express their condolences and their grief and it has been well-received."

Legacy.com evolved its site soon after its inception to accommodate for moving memorials with photos and music after Sept. 11.

Legacy.com has a relationship with 300 newspapers, including the Sun-Times.

At the end of the initial year, family members are given the choice to either purchase the memorial site, which keeps it active, or to allow it to be archived. The comments made about the person are never really gone.

"We will go back and get the memorial, put back online if no one purchased it," Cary said.

Once it is viewed for a couple days, it is archived again.

Barkauskas said sites like legacy.com help in the grieving process.

"It's just another way for people to feel connected to other grievers, and it makes them feel less isolated," he said. "Maybe they can't talk to someone, but they can visit the site."

Being online offers a buffer between the person posting the stories and the person reading them. Since they are in the privacy of their own homes when they read the comments, they can react with tears, if that is what helps.

"This is a way of being able to get these feeling out in a very private way," Barkauskas said. "That is a wonderful part of the grieving process, being able to express those feelings."

The Internet also enables the person posting to take their time and to tell a story about the deceased that they may not be able to tell in person.

"Telling stories is a very meaningful way of people expressing and helping themselves to heal," Barkauskas said.

Copyright © 2006. The Herald News.