THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 30, 1995 TAG: 9510280056
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: THE GATEWAY
EXPLORING THE COMPUTER WORLD
SOURCE: BY TOM BOYER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
AT THE TIME of year when ghosts and spooks roam the streets, there's a place on the Internet where dead people really live - in the memories of loved ones left behind.
Just like a real-life cemetery, though, The Virtual Memorial Garden turns out not to be scary when you actually visit. It's warm, sad and sometimes beautiful, an antidote to the notion that cyberspace is an impersonal place.
To get there, point your World Wide Web browser to http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/VMG
You'll see memorial messages posted from people around the world, arranged in alphabetical order by the name of the deceased.
``My daddy was just an ex-cop in Philly,'' goes one. ``He loved grandkids, the Philadelphia Phillies, fishing and me. When I cast off I always feel another line in the water.''
This memorial was written for a girl who died, apparently in a car accident at 17: ``She was my best friend in the world and I loved her so. Even though I never told her. . . . It's been 8 years and damn it I still miss you. I guess I'll never get you off my mind.''
The man behind the Virtual Memorial Garden is Lindsay Marshall, a British computer science teacher who runs the free service from his desktop computer.
``I wanted the VMG not to be a place of death,'' Marshall writes in his introduction, ``but a place where people can celebrate family, friends and pets, to tell the rest of us about them and why they were special.'' Anyone can submit a memorial message by filling out a Web form. There's a separate web page for pets.
Browsing the VMG is a little like reading a newspaper obituary page. You learn about the lives of special people. But instead of the impersonal tone of an obit, you hear the voices of friends and family. Sometimes funny, often anguished they could give comfort to visitors who have also suffered loss.
``We all you miss you Dov,'' wrote a family member. ``The pain you left behind tears us into little pieces blown to the ends of the earth looking for a peaceful place to rest.''
``Megan,'' begins another, ``you'd laugh yourself sick thinking about a memorial to you out in the middle of something so tacky as an `information superhighway.' You deserved to die in a free fall from a Broadway theatre balcony at a very advanced age, not in agony after a year on your back dehumanized by vaginal cancer. I'll always remember you laughing, I promise.'' MEMO: More computer columns and stories are available on the Extra page of
Pilot Online; see Page A2 for details. If you have ideas or comments for
The Gateway, contact Tom Boyer at boyer(AT)infi.net or 446-2362.
by CNB