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Internet sites link to online obituaries where loved ones write to the dead and each other

A year after her death, Liza Warner still gets e-mail.
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"I got a job working in a factory," her stepson writes.

"I went to Austin Beauty School for the interview," a friend reports.

Her mother tells of a trip to psychic John Edwards. "I did not make contact with you. I am sure ... you are just not the type to push your way around up in heaven."

They have entered her "guest book," an Internet site linked to her online obituary. Here, loved ones write to the dead -- and each other -- long after the funeral. Books for Warner, a 29-year-old hairstylist murdered by her husband, and others have spawned tight-knit communities that grieve openly and write often.

Such guest books are becoming the norm nationwide. Half the folks dying daily in the U.S. will have a guest book, said Hayes Ferguson, chief operating officer of Legacy.com, the industry leader. Legacy hosts guest books for more than 200 newspapers. Employees review 400,000 guest book entries each month, up from a handful a day in 1999, she said.

Many funeral homes also offer guest books and other online memorials.

Messages range from the commonplace to heart wrenching.

"To: Grampy. Heaven ... Hey! How are you? I bet you love it up there, huh? I am doing good down here as you can see," wrote the grandson of Timothy Johnson, 67, a Ballston Spa auctioneer who died in August.

There is the sense that the deceased is watching and listening.

"I miss you so much honey and the hurt is always with me. Some days are okay but some days are in the Dumpster," wrote Liza Warner's father.

The practice reflects a shift in modern American grief from "getting over it" to integrating the departed into daily life. It comes at a time when mourners erect roadside crosses, place videos inside tombstones, keep ashes on the mantel.

"This is a very big grass-roots change in mourning practices," said Bill Leonard, dean of the divinity school at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. "Religious people and secular people are doing this. It allows people to (do) more than just send flowers or try to make a quick phone call."

Some see the trend as improper. In July, Miss Manners criticized e-condolences as "a breezy way of dismissing a solemn occurrence." She prefers handwritten notes.

Mourning should be "a moment of solitude," wrote Roy Hattersley of the London Daily Mail, not something we "display to every passer-by."

The bereaved disagree.

In London, Hattersley's compatriots carpeted the streets with flowers after the death of Princess Diana and criticized the Queen's restrained reaction.

In Albany, "If it wasn't for the guest book, I don't think I would get through," said Robert Stratton Jr., whose daughter, Kimberly, died at 25 in March of diabetes-related complications.

Her 270-entry book is the second-largest ever in the Capital Region. (The largest is for Watervliet soldier David Michael Fisher, 21, who was killed in Iraq.)

The site gives people space to grieve beyond a sympathy card, Stratton said. Calling relatives across the country, he sent them to the Web site "before they even left to come to Albany."

While handwritten cards are uplifting, "when they're online, everyone can read everyone else's card," Stratton said.

Guest books are free for 30 days; a one-year sponsorship costs $29. Legacy.com charges $79 for a permanent site.

While the Strattons are very religious, many of their daughter's contemporaries don't attend church. The traditional Baptist service might not give them what they need, Stratton said.

"I hate visiting you at a grave because I can't see, touch, and talk or smell you," wrote Danielle McLean, 19, Kim's "godsister. I miss you so much."

Kim's friends also printed T-shirts with her picture, a common practice in urban neighborhoods.

"I know (the guest book) has been a great help to a lot of her generation," Stratton said. "It allows them to grow and still be attached to (her) as if she were just away. And that's the way we look at it. We all know that (she's) in heaven. But it kind of gives you an address here for someone like Danielle to write to her. It gives us that earthly address."

Recent events, from the 9/11 attacks to the Iraq war, tsunami, hurricanes and the mudslides in Guatemala require "a lot more capability of grieving and bearing witness together," said Samuel Larcombe, a New Mexico scholar who studies memorials. "Grief is more public these days."

Leonard agreed: "Because of geographic distances, not to mention emotional or familial, it may be an outlet for people who put off seeing the deceased until they can't anymore."

As the saying goes: Death ends a life, but not a relationship.

"It's been a month today and I still feel so empty," Risha Marable of Albany wrote in Stratton's book. "We are like peanut butter and jelly and now jelly is gone."

After Liza Warner was killed, her best friend, Amy Blair-Luzinski, 33, hesitated before writing online. A year later, however, she's written 17 of the 210 entries and gets notified when anyone else contributes.

She doesn't care if her missives are public.

"I went to the Crime Victims brick ceremony on Saturday," she wrote in April. "We couldn't have asked for better weather! I took a picture of your brick with my cellphone ... I love you, Always, Lizzy!"

"I'm not worried about what people will think," Blair-Luzinski said. "I want everyone to know what she was like ... It lets me release my feelings. I feel like I'm talking to somebody."

But is Liza listening?

"Yeah," her friend said. "As weird as that sounds. I think she's reading."

Surprised by the response, Legacy.com, which is partly owned by the Tribune Co., has expanded its offerings to video and tributes for service members and hurricane victims. The goal: create memorial biographies that could last for generations, Ferguson said.

Liza Warner's mother, Martha Lasher-Warner, recently saw an old friend she'd lost contact with. "She told me she reads Liza's guest book all the time," Lasher-Warner said.

Both Lasher-Warner and her son, Eric, got tattoos commemorating Liza. And Lasher recently paid $79 to make her slain daughter's guest book permanent.

"It keeps her alive," Lasher-Warner said. "Yes, it does. It keeps her alive and that's why I need to make it permanent."

Copyright © 2005. Times Union.