"I know why we try to keep the dead alive: We try to keep them alive in order to keep them with us."

-- "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion, who lost her husband and daughter. (Knopf, 2006)

Over Memorial Day weekend, Holly Fallon wrote a letter to her only child, Eric James Andrews: "It's been three months now, today. ... and I still feel numb. Colors and objects, well, everything looks different still. I don't think that I will ever see anything quite the same way ever again, literally. I still can't go into your room without crying. I am talking to someone about all of this though, so don't worry. I will eventually be able to do normal things again."

On Feb. 28, a Temecula police officer who responded to a call about a suicide attempt fatally shot Eric. He was 18.

But rather than just visit Eric's grave in Fullerton, his mother keeps his spirit alive online. Fallon, 41, has taken over his profile on the online networking site MySpace and created links to other Web sites for tributes.

"I wanted to document the wonderful pictures, the funny stories, so people know Eric the way I did," said Fallon. "I want his friends to see it, to take comfort in it. That's the whole point."

Just as Internet has spawned new ways to make friends, find lovers, schmooze and bare emotions, personal Web pages are changing how we grieve.

Increasingly, mourning becomes electronic when users of social networking sites (MySpace, Xanga.com and Facebook.com) die. Friends and family members continue to "drop by," sometimes posting poems, thoughts, memories, photographs -- turning their loved ones' pages into virtual memorials.

Digital Memorials

"In many cases there are communities that have sprung up around these networks of people," said Amanda Lenhart in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The researcher at the Pew Internet & American Life Project added, "MySpace has become a digital space where people can be memorialized, a place where people can revisit them long after their death."

Cyberspace can offer a positive mechanism to vent emotions and find support with others, said clinical psychologist Mark Lerner, president of The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress. The flip side is the danger to vulnerable survivors at the mercy of strangers. "We can't control the responses of others when we expose ourselves in a public forum," he said. "Feedback can be obnoxious and offensive. Sometimes it's well-meaning but inappropriate."

Terresa Sanchez, of Hemet, occasionally visits several online pages devoted to her late friend, Adrian Adam Verdugo, who was 17. The Twentynine Palms resident shot himself last Sept. 14.

Stopping by these Web pages "gives me an outlet to 'talk' to Adrian," Sanchez, 20, said in an e-mail. "It's also comforting to read other people's comments. It's nice to know you're not alone and that there are others out there who are feeling the same feelings that you are. It allows him to touch other people's lives and it lets people get to know who he was."

One of the sites she frequents is Legacy.com, which powers the online obituaries of 275 newspapers nationwide, including The Press-Enterprise.

Legacy.com has created an online version of a traditional funeral guest book, but the company has been surprised by the way people use it, chief operating officerHayes Ferguson said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

People write directly to the deceased in real time and tend to return. Even those who don't know that person will sign his or her guest book if the obituary touched them, Ferguson said.

MyDeathSpace

The practice of grieving in cyberspace has attracted savvy digerati, such as 25-year-old Mike Patterson, Web master of MyDeathSpace.com. The site chronicles the accidents, suicides, murders, diseases and drug overdoses that claimed young lives. It features links to more than 300 deceased MySpace users' personal Web pages, news stories, obituaries or blogs that detail their short lives interrupted.

Garret Mezuk, 16, of Warren, Mich., jumped from a freeway overpass Jan. 13. Kristen Bowen, 14 of Villa Park, Ill., was killed by a freight train Feb. 11. Annemarie Cambell, 23, of Paris, Tenn., died from an alligator attack May 14. Shawn Polewski, 22, of Portage, Ind., died of a heroin overdose Feb. 4. It's a haunting directory connected to Web pages that have changed from wisecracking daily journals about crushes or concerts to eulogies, remembrances and cries of pain from friends and loved ones.

There are daily additions by Patterson, a Bay Area paralegal and student.

About 81 million people are registered on MySpace. The company doesn't delete pages for inactivity, but will remove pages of deceased users at the request of survivors.

Nor does the company automatically allow people to assume control of the accounts of deceased users, said MySpace president Tom Anderson. "MySpace handles each incident on a case-by-case basis when notified, and will work with families to respect their wishes," Anderson wrote in an e-mail.

Sarah Amanda Snow wrote this tribute to Adrian Verdugo, who is listed on MyDeathSpace: "As soon as I met you I knew you were going to be a very special friend. Your smile, as many others have said, could always brighten my day, make me feel better. I'm so glad you moved in next door. I'm going to miss your jokes, your smile of course, your skateboarding, your 'west side' jokes, remember Compton?"

MyDeathSpace also celebrates the life of Kyle Miran, 15, of Apple Valley. He died last Oct. 7 while riding his dirt bike. Friend Tiffany Fanus wrote: "It's so hard cuz we think he's still here when he's not! It leaves a hole in your heart but at least he's in your memories and in your heart as well. I'll never forget you!"

The pages offer devastating glimpses of young people who died before they'd really begun to live. This very open grieving process has created a dilemma for bereaved parents. Many take comfort in accessing their children's private lives and staying in touch with their friends, but are uneasy about mourning in a public forum.

From reading the tributes to her son Kyle on MySpace, his mother, Theresa Miran, 48, said: "It's comforting to know he had such a huge impact on others. At least I have that connection."

But the loss is so shattering that Miran can't bring herself to enter Kyle's bedroom or even empty the dirty clothes he'd left in his hamper.

"I had a wonderful relationship with Kyle and his friends," Miran said. She has written a few comments on his MySpace and started one of her own. "He was so smart, funny and had so much potential. He had the kindest heart."

Flippant Reaction

But some of the remarks left on individuals' pages by random visitors are morbidly flippant, even brutal. "I guess he really DIDN'T want fries with that," posted by a user named Tom in response to the stabbing death of a 17-year-old girl by a deranged man at the McDonald's where she worked in Vancouver, Wash. A deaf girl killed by a train while she was walking and text messaging in Austin, Texas, prompted another user named Adrienne to write: "Such a cartooney death." MyDeathSpace Web master Patterson said he now removes links to memorial sites or comments when requested by the family.

Eric Mueller, who knew Eric Andrews well, leaves the Web sites to his fiancee, Holly Fallon. "I try to stay away from them," he said. "I loved Eric very much, but I have other ways of keeping his memory alive."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The New York Times contributed to this report.

Reach Laurie Lucas at llucas@PE.com or 951-368-9569.

© 2006, The Press-Enterprise Company