Copyright © eContent Management Pty Ltd. Health Sociology Revi.docx

Copyright © eContent Management Pty Ltd. Health Sociology
Review (2012) 2 1 ( 4 ) : 4 1 3 - 4 3 1 .
Death and grief on-line: Virtual memorialization and changing
concepts of childhood death and parental
bereavement on the Internet
LISA M MITCHELL, PETER H STEPHENSON*, SUSAN
CADELL"^ AND MARY ELLEN MACDONALD'
Department of Anthropology, University of Victoria, Victoria,
BC, Canada; *School of
Environmental Studies and Department of Anthropology,
University of Victoria, Victoria, BC,
Canada; ^School of Social Work, Renison University College,
University of Waterloo, Waterloo,
ON, Canada; 'Faculty of Dentistry, McGill University,
Montreal, QC, Canada
A B S T R A C T : 'Virtual memorials' intended to memorialize
the lives of children imply significant shifts in the
conceptualiza-
tion of death, particularly for grieving parents. Created by
parents in memory of their deceased children, on-line memorials
constructed using templates reflect strong cultural beließ about
the nature of childhood deaths, grief and the development of a
kind of distal afterlife. Yirtual memorials create a new social
value for the deceased and shift death and bereavement from

private into more public experiences. Building upon this work,
we describe a kind of 'on-line immortality' created through
virtual memorials where the virtiud presence of the deceased in
text and images, and practices intended to sustain a relation-
ship with the deceased can extend bereavement and the social
lives of the dead indefinitely. While such memorials can offer
solace, they also potentiate business opportunities for those
hoping to create lasting customers. As such, they may also
extend
mourning indefinitely. This may be especiaUy true for certain
kinds of deeply problematic deaths, such as those of children.
KEYWORDS: virtual, online, memorials, grief, children,
parents
Though many people sit night after night intheir living rooms
watching various kinds of
'death' and irmumerable dead bodies as a form
of entertainment (e.g., CSI, Bones), the death of
loved ones and the grief which follows are still
mosdy sequestered from everyday life in eco-
nomically and technologically advantaged coun-
tries, including Canada. Grief and bereavement
are confmed to specific times and places, and are
mainly private, or secluded experiences. Most
deaths take place in hospitals, nursing homes, and
hospices, and are managed by health care profes-
sionals who also inform the bereaved of what is
'normal' and what is 'pathological' in the grief
process, and offer ways to 'resolve' grief and to
grieve properly. Anthropological research has

long established that the dead in many cultural
contexts have social lives (Baydala, Hampton,
Rinunwa, Kinunwa, & Kinunwa, 2006; Counts
& Counts, 2004; Hattori, McCubbin, & Ishida,
2006; Keesing, 1982; Rodman & Rodman,
1983). But, until recendy the dominant approach
in Canadian bereavement care has been that
survivors should view death as fmal and they
should 'work' to sever attachment with the dead.
Funerals, it is claimed, provide 'closure', enabling
friends and family members to 'get over' or
'move beyond' their grief and 'get on' with life.
Openly maintaining a relationship with the dead
is widely discouraged, and may even be pathol-
ogized as a sign of 'faüed' or 'unresolved' grief
if it persists. However, this 'remnant taboo ...
in relation to bereavement and the permissibil-
ity of its expression' (Gibson, 2007, p. 417) can
become unfettered on the Web, whereas Walter,
Hourizi, Moncur, and Pitsillides (2011, p. 285)
point out, 'Pictures of the dead, convenations
with the dead, and mourners' feelings can and
do become part of the everyday on-line world'.
Within this broad pattern, parental grief
and bereavement are distinctive in ways that
may predispose parents to rely on the Internet
as a resource in the expression of grief, in part
because it has the potential to connect isolated
individuals with one another. In this article, we
will explore some of the ways in which the on-
Hne expression of parental grief may both reUeve
social isolation, and possibly perpetuate it. The
social invisibility, sequestering and stigmatiz-
ing of parental grief is especially common since

the death of a child is widely regarded by many
North Americans, Europeans and Australians
Volume 21, Issue 4, December 2012 413
Lisa M Mitchell et al.
(among others) as an unspeakable contravention
of the 'natural' order of things, particularly in
'modem' society. The pervasive cultural nar-
rative su^ests that 'children should bury their
parents', that parents pass on inhetitance 'down'
to their children and live on through their chil-
dren. Hence, 'When a child dies, it is always out
of season ... dreams die and we are all dimin-
ished by the loss of human potential. Although
dying is a part of life, a child's death, in a very
real sense, is unnatural ...' (Behrman, 2003, p.
xv). The death of child may profoundly disrupt
deeply held ontological assumptions and nar-
ratives about time, the future, nature, and may
threaten parental identity (Buckle & Fleming,
2011; Stephenson, 2002a, 2002b). Indeed, there
are English-language terms such as 'widow',
'widower' and 'orphan' to mark those changes
in social status, but there is no special kin-term
for parents whose children have died. The
term 'civilians' is employed by some bereaved
parents to identify those who have not shared
their experience (Hastings, 2000); unlike civil-
ians, bereaved parents, like soldiers, have expe-
rienced an unspeakable trauma and horror. As
Macdonald, Mitchell, Stephenson, and Cadell
(2009) write:

Bereaved parents invoke feelings of discomfort in the
non-bereaved: There is a danger in their liminal status,
a reminder of mortality and a sense of 'there but for
the grace of god go I'. Fear of contagion, bad luck, and
pollution furthers their exclusion. (Macdonald et al.,
2009, p. 6)
Evidence from North America and the UK
indicates that the death of a child is one of the
most disruptive and profound types of loss, with
deep, intense and often prolonged grief. This
is highly variable in cultural terms. Cultural
groups such as the Hutterites, for example, do
not experience the deaths of children to be as
fundamentally threatening as the majority cul-
ture does (Burgess, Stephenson, Ratanakul,
& Suwannakaote, 1998; Stephenson, 1983-
1984) and global patterns of early childhood
death in areas of great poverty and epidemic
disease demonstrate a weary acceptance of
the inevitabilities of high child mortality
(Einarsdóttir, 2004; Scheper-Hughes, 1993).
In economically and technological advan-
taged societies, bereavement after children die
is often prolonged and may become 'compli-
cated' (to use the psychologized/medicalized
term) by a cultural narrative which idealizes
relatively brief and painless death fî om 'natural
causes' at the end of a long life (Stephenson,
1983—1984). Deaths of young children are rela-
tively rare in affluent countries, so shared expe-
rience of this among one's relatives and friends
is limited, and bereaved parents frequently
report feeling very isolated (Riches & Dawson,

1996). Gender differences in bereavement and
in particular, the experiences of fathers are
not well researched (Musambira, Hasting, &
Hoover, 2007, p. 272). However, there is some
evidence that mothers have significantly higher
scores on measures of despair, anger/hostility,
guilt, loss of control, rumination, depersonali-
zation, somatization and various physical symp-
toms, than do fathers. Both mothers and fathers
experience feelings of social isolation (Schwab,
1996). Dispersed kinship networks, geographic
mobility and the absence of an enduring sense
of community in the lives of many urban North
Americans may exacerbate this sense of isola-
tion. Bereaved parents generally experience
more intense and more frequent depression,
especially loss of appetite and sleep disturbance
than other bereaved individuals (Blank, 1998).
If a deceased child was their only child, parental
identity is also lost and grieved.
While the death of any child can result in
intense and long-lasting grief, there are addi-
tional complexities when adult children die.
Others may assume that parental anguish is
less intense than for young children, reason-
ing that at least the adult child 'had a life'.
Consequently, parents of adult children often
fmd their grief 'discounted' (Doka, 2002).
Similarly, women and their partners who do
not have living children but have experienced
miscarriage or stillbirth may find themselves
socially excluded from the category of 'parent'
(Layne, 2002). Comments like, 'don't worry,
you can always have another one' or 'at least
you didn't get attached' which are especially

414 So? Volume 21, Issue 4, December 2012 © eContent
Management Pty Ltd
Death and grief on-line JÍ.
commonplace comments made to people after
perinatal loss, may be well intentioned, but
they 'discount' the emotional experience of
the bereaved parent. Discounted grief is also
associated with deaths due to causes that make
others uncomfortable or judgmental, includ-
ing drunk driving, violence, and suicide — each
of which is a common causes of death among
adolescents. These kinds of deaths often induce
in parents strong guut feelings associated with
failing to recognize the seriousness of their
problems.
Not only may bereaved parents be socially
isolated, stigmatized, and no longer regarded as
'parents', there is growing recognition among
bereavement specialists that parental grief consti-
tutes a 'devastating, ever-present grief (Buckle
& Fleming, 2011, p. 1) that is especially resis-
tant to intervention and is essentially permanent
(Klass, 1988). From a recent volume entitled
Parenting afier the Death of a Child: A Practitioner's
Guide:
Bereaved parenting, then, is an act of engaging in
regeneration, but it is not an act of 'acceptance', 'res-
olution', 'moving on' or 'getting over' the death of a
beloved child. It is an act of 'picking up the pieces'

in the face of the devastation, forever respectñil and
informed by the weight of their child's absence.
(Buckle & Fleming, 2011, p. xvii)
V I R T U A L MEMORIALS
In this complex social and cultural context in
which chud death and parental grief are seen to
be socially disruptive and even taboo and at the
same time acknowledged as permanent and resis-
tant to traditional bereavement interventions, we
undertook a study of virtual memorials created
by parents to memorialize their deceased child.
What is a virtual or on-line memorial? They are
found on the Internet in a number of forms:
O n social networking sites such as MySpace
and Facebook, in sHdeshows of the deceased set
to music and uploaded onto YouTube, and on
specialized memorial hosting websites created
by charities, flxneral homes, bereaved individu-
als, associations connected with specific illnesses,
and notably in profit-based Internet sites which
provide web-space at a cost to the bereaved
individual'. In addition to virtual memorials for
individual adults and children, there are sites
commemorating celebrities, saints, and for mass
deaths (e.g., victims of natural disasters in Japan,
Haiti, New Orleans) and many for pets (Gibson,
2007). Early on-line memorials, appearing in
the mid-1990s (CarroU & Landry, 2010), were
mostly text with no or limited graphics, but
with the advent of Web 2.0, they have grown in
complexity, visual appeal, animation and ease of
production by individuals without knowledge of
web design. As we discuss in more detail in this

article, specialized memorial hosting sites now
provide easy to use menu-based instructions
for memorial construction, and offer a range of
design templates, including some for deceased
infants and children. From one site:
... our memorial websites offer families and friends
the opportunity to stay close to those they have lost
... Tell their story with an in-depth biography; recall
their favorite movies and foods with a fevorites sec-
tion; even post video and audio for a unique opportu-
nity for yourself and site visitors to really connect with
the deceased loved one. Newspaper obituaries hardly
offer more than a quick factual news brief. Memorial
websites are the obituaries of the future, offering real
insight into who your loved one was and what their
life was like. From beautiflil pictures to descriptive
text to touching audio, the content found on our vir-
tual memorials provides family members and friends
the chance to say goodbye, as well as pay tribute.
(Beconrad, 2008)
In both promotional material and some
research on web memorials, much has been
made of on-line commemoration and bereave-
ment as 'new' and distinctive social practices.
UnHke most physical monuments, virtual
memorials can be continually modified by
family and fiiends, as well as by individuals out-
side the deceased's social network (Hess, 2007;
Memorializing the dead takes many forms on the Web;
to clarify, by 'virtual memorials' we are not referring to
the virtual graves and memorials that can be created in
virtual life (VL) platforms such as Second Life. Nor are
we referring to the various on-line options to notify your

virtual friends of your actual demise or disperse your
virtual assets. The virtual memorials we study are very
much like personal web pages.
© eContent Management Pty Ltd Volume 21, Issue 4, December
2012 415
Roberts, 2004). Memorial web pages are 'de-
territorialized' (Hess, 2007) and thus do not
constrain bereavement into one ritual place and
time, like funerals on a specific day or a grave at
a specific geographical location. This transcen-
dence 'provides grievers with relative anonymity
and privacy, dignity, neutrality, [and] constant
availability' (Williams & Merton, 2009, p. 71),
enabling family and friends of the deceased to
grieve whenever and however they wish. At
the same time, virtual memorials shift death and
bereavement from the private sphere of fam-
ily and local community into the public largely
unregulated spaces of the Internet (deVries &
Rutherford, 2004, p. 23; Geser, 1998; Gibson,
2007; Walteretal., 2011).
Through asynchronous public access, the on-
line memorials are said to enable new forms of
support for bereaved individuals, providing a
sense of community, 'a unique form of commu-
nal discourse' (Carroll & Landry, 2010, p. 342)
and offering solace to individuals (Hess, 2007;
Roberts, 2004). Moreover, some virtual memo-
rials promote their services as therapeutic and as

*an important step in the healing process' (Paver
of Memories, n.d.). Some of the larger memo-
rial hosting companies even offer a range of
bereavement services, including 'grief counsel-
lors, advice, community forums, and real-world
projects and initiatives' (MemoryOf, 2009a).
A fundamental question here concerns the
way(s) in which the conceptualization and
meanings of death associated with bereavement
may be changing in the context of virtual memo-
rials. This is more than simply a question about
changing attitudes towards death in specific
communities. Culturally variable, age-related
and gendered attitudes about specific ideas (e.g.,
communicating life-threatening diagnoses, ideas
of an afterlife, attitudes towards euthanasia, organ
transplantation) have been well documented
throughout a wide literature in medicine and
the social sciences (Gibson, 2007; Lock, 2001;
Timmermans, 2005). The question concerning
conceptualization goes to the heart of how death
is constructed on an ongoing and relational basis
with surviving parents, as weU as siblings and
friends, and the possibilities for a transformation
ofthat understanding. We are primarily interested
in memorialization here as part of the dialectic of
life and death, not other media conventions sur-
rounding death: Its use as a narrative force 'to
inform, shock entertain' (Gibson, 2007, p. 416).
For example, Ortner (1997) has described in
detail how Sherpa and the international moun-
taineering community's construction of death
contrasts between notions of managed risk and
fmancial reward for the former, and life affirming

existential experiences of risk for the latter - each
of which on the surface mutually produces the
other through the shared experience of climb-
ing. Importantly, these are more than attitudes;
they are culturally constituted relational mean-
ings, which are reproduced on an ongoing and
repeated basis through both participation and
resistance by both parties (Ortner, 1997).
Of particular interest to us is the idea that vir-
tual memorials blur the boundaries between the
living and the dead, enabling relationships to con-
tinue after death (Davies, 2004; Klass, Silverman,
& Nicbnan, 1996; Roberts, 2004). deVries and
Rutherford (2004) note that while 'death ends a
life — it does not necessarily end a relationship* (p.
6) and the idea of a 'continuous bond* between
the living and the dead underlies much of the cur-
rent marketing and appeal of virtual memorials.
Of course, relationships between the dead and the
living are not dependent upon technology, on-
line or otherwise. Yet, it is clear that the Web and
virtual memorials may shape those relationships
in distinctive ways. Indeed, individuals often post
comments directly to the deceased and several
studies have found that grieving family and friends
list 'communicating with the dead* as a a key rea-
son to visit virtual memorials (Roberts, 2004,
p. 62; Walter et al., 2011; Williams & Merton,
2009, p. 82). By implication, publicly available
details of the lives of the deceased may persist
in the Internet indefinitely. The estates of some
dead celebrities are a case in point: Elvis Presley
and Michael Jackson's performances and their on-
line cult penonalities generate far more income
now than they ever did when they were alive.

Deceased individuals achieve an on-line immor-
tality, visible and accessible globally, and 'these
surviving digital selves are managed in important
416 Volume 21, Issue 4, December 2012 © eContent
Management Pty Ltd
Deatb and grief on-line
ways by otbers' (Carroll & Landry, 2010, p. 348).
Tbese continuing bonds and immortality medi-
ated tbrougb tbe tecbnology and spaces of tbe
Internet and tbe practices wbicb tbey are enabling
suggest cbanging ideas about 'proper' relations
with tbe dead and the 'proper' place, time, and
visibility of grief Numerous studies bave com-
mented on novel and changing bereavement
practices enabled tbrougb on-line activities (see
Walter et al., 2011, for a recent review). Our aim
in tbis paper is to foreground tbe tecbnologjcal
mediation of parental bereavement, bigblighting
ways in wbicb meanings and social relationships
are being actively constituted tbrougb Internet
tecbnology.
In particular, we bring an analysis of tbe tecb-
nology of virtual memorials into conversation
witb cultural narratives about deceased cbildren
and bereaved parents in order to consider bow
tbese memorials enable or constrain afibrdances,
or 'possibilities for action' (Hutcbby, 2001). By
attending to tbe tecbno-social aspects of vir-
tual memorials, we consider wbat it means for
deceased cbildren to have a sort of 'on-line

immortality' in which parents can not only 'cre-
ate' and 'grow' tbeir child in images and text,
but also maintain a relationship with that child,
communicate witb tbe child, encourage oth-
ers to do the same, and even establish connec-
tions between deceased children. W e suggest
tbat tbese tecbnologicaUy mediated practices
may be one of tbe ways tbrougb wbich parents
continue to constitute themselves as respon-
sible, loving parents to tbeir deceased children.
W e consider why tbe technologically mediated
'bonds' enabled tbrough virtual memorials are
increasingly regarded as a legitimate and healthy
means of maintaining an 'on-going' presence of
and relationship with the deceased. We argue
that the experience of Internet-based grieving
bas tbe potential to botb mitigate feelings of iso-
lation, but also to prolong tbem.
M E T H O D
The research on which our analysis is based was
undertaken as part of a larger interdisciplinary
project on parental bereavement that asks several
open-ended questions: What are the experiences
of bereaved parents in Canada? How do these
experiences align with or differ from the ways
in which the impact of the death of a child is
understood and represented in Canadian social
policy (e.g., bereavement leave), popvdar culture
(sucb as film, news), and especially in profes-
sional bereavement care. 'Cbild' is deñned here
relationally, and so can be a penon wbo died at
any age (as an adult, as an adolescent, a cbild,
an infant, or even pre-natally). In tbis paper

we confine our discussion to EngÜsb-language
memorial sites in remembrance of individuals
who Uved in Canada, the United States, and the
United Kingdom, most of whom died between
the ages of 5-18. Memorials for prenatal loss,
stillbirth, and very young infants wiU be tbe sub-
jects of a separate paper.
In order to get a sense of the diversity of
formats, we searched for 'on-Une' and 'virtual'
memorials using botb broad searcb engines sucb
as Google and specifically for 'cbild' and 'teen'
memorials within specific memorial sites and
in social networking sites including: YouTube,
MySpace, and Facebook. Internal site searches
following 'related pages' suggested by tbe site
and using terms sucb as 'cbild deatb', 'pregnancy
loss' and 'parental bereavement' led us to otber
memorials. In total we viewed over 100 virtual
memorials, beginning witb tbe home page on
each, clicking on tabs to see any additional pages,
and reading through texts and posts; in other
words, 'experiencing them the way a visitor'
might (Finlay & Krueger, 2011). W e also dis-
covered that comments posted to virtual memo-
rials by individuals unknown to tbe deceased's
family not infrequently contained links to other
on-line memorials. (We have not looked in
detail at sites advertising themselves as explic-
itly Christian nor at memorials to murdered or
disappeared children which are both worthy of
separate and focused analyses.)
The focus in this paper is on easy to use
template-based memorials on specialized memo-
rial bosting sites ratber tban memorials on social

networking sites or tbe shdesbow and video
memorials posted on YouTube. Our focus on
template-based memorials certainly excludes
novel or unconventional forms of memorials
2012 417
such as those built 'from scratch' (Finlay &
Krueger, 2011) and offer users a more limited
opportunity to resistant normative representa-
tions of death and bereavement. Nonetheless,
template-based memorials enable us to focus on
the technological options available to a wider
range of Internet users, including those viath
little or no experience in web design. Private
or members-only web memorials do exist, but
all of the data for this study was available in the
public domain of the Web without subscription
or membership. The memorial site quotations
are verbatim without correcting for punctua-
tion, spelling, and sentence structure. Names of
individuals, dates and places have been changed
or deleted.
While we have interviewed bereaved parents,
these interviews have not, to date, focused
specifically on the creation of virtual memorials.
Nor, due to ethical concerns, did we attempt
to contact any of the parents who created
the memorials we have viewed as the basis of
this paper.

THEORIZING VIRTUAL MEMORIALS:
REPRESENTATIONS AND AFFORDANCES
We theorize virtual memorials as instances of
socially and technologically mediated practice
or 'modes of engagement' (Wu Song, 2010) by
which parents may represent and interact with
their deceased child. With this framing and as
we articulate throughout the paper, our concern
is to examine how the Web 2.0 based technol-
ogy of virtual memorials is not simply a passive
tool for merely depicting the deceased but seems
to offer some parents a means of continuing the
social relationship to their child, indeed, in some
sense, of maintaining and enlivening that child.
Central to our analyses of socially and technolog-
ically mediated parenting of deceased children
are the terms 'representation' and *affordance'.
'Representation' as we use the term does not
connote only the sense of a copy or facsimile
of an entity. Rather, in our analysis, a repre-
sentation simultaneously depicts something and
constitutes it (Hall, 1997) and it is in that dual
process of showing and making that what is rep-
resented is novel, somehow different from its
original referent. Representation in this sense
does not privilege a reflection of an underly-
ing or previous material or interpretive reality,
nor does it depict something entirely without
a past, without reference to and constraint by
existing ideas, relationships, practices and enti-
ties. We suggest that Web 2.0 virtual memori-

als enable representations of deceased children
who have clear resemblances to the child who
lived but who are, nonetheless, novel iterations
ofthat child. Similarly, as the child continues in
some new form and sense, so too does parent-
ing. Further, we s u r e s t that the affordances of
Web 2.0 are central to this process of creating
persons and relationships in novel forms.
Affordances are described by Hutchby (2001,
p. 441) as 'possibilities for action' and by Rappert
as 'the perceived properties of an object [includ-
ing technology] that suggest (but do not deter-
mine) how it might be used' (Behrman, 2003,
p. 566 cited in Graves, 2007, pp. 335-336).
Affordances have been extensively theorized
since first introduced by psychologist Gibson
(1977) and we note here that we are using this
concept in a limited way, framed by Gibson's
interactionist view of perception and action.
Gibson focused on environmentally available
information and examined situated interactions
where agents are constrained. His contextu-
alized approach has been widely taken up by
ecological psychology, interpersonal communi-
cation studies and research on complex, socially
organized activity such as the Internet (Greeno,
1994). Of particular interest here are three char-
acteristics of affordances as outlined by arche-
ologist Knappett (2004). First, affordances are
relational in that they are neither independent
attributes of the technology nor are they uncon-
strained interpretations of that technology.
Rather, affordances are 'a relational property,
shared between object and agent' and emerging
through the dynamic engagement of technolog-

ical limits and user perceptions (Knappet, 2004,
p. 46). Second, the transparency of affordances,
that is, the uses suggested by a given technol-
ogy are not pre-determined but fluctuate 'in
different situations involving different agents'
(Knappett, 2004, p. 46). A final characteristic of
Management Pty Ltd
Death and grief on-line
affordances is their sodality — what the technol-
ogy may suggest as possibilities for action 'may
be negotiated and contested' depending upon
those situations and agents (Knappett, 2004, p.
47). In sum, affordances highlight the dynamic,
diverse relational aspect of technological prac-
tice, enabling us to consider not only how tech-
nology is used in particular ways by bereaved
parents, but how that technology enables and
constrains their bereavement practices.
The general affordances of web pages since
Web 2.0 include user-generated content, the
capacity for audio and graphics, highly interac-
tive communication modes (social networking
sites, blogging, wikis), and user-fiiendly tem-
plates for building web sites (Wu Song, 2010). As
we noted above, although there are several kinds
of virtual memorials, our analysis here focuses
on those created through the use of Web 2.0
templates. Templates are pre-designed websites
which individuals without expert knowledge of

software or of coding language can personalize
by following a relatively simple series of steps
to upload their own content in photos, text,
video, and audio. In effect, templates are sites
through which the affordances of virtual memo-
rials are created and enacted. Templates are also
the means by which bereaved parents create a
place and a presence for their deceased child and
for themselves on the Web. They offer oppor-
tunities, which can be understood in terms of
affordances.
What possibilities do these affordances cre-
ate in virtual memorials? The templates we
have encountered on various hosting sites are
designed for creating memorials for individu-
als, not for groups, historical events, or mass
disasters. In fact, two templates are often avail-
able for different kinds of grief: O n more than
one hosting site, tabs for 'Create a Memorial
for a Person' and 'Create a Memorial for a Pet'
appear side by side, seemingly accorded similar
social weight. While templates make the cre-
ation of virtual memorials relatively easy, they
also require parents to decide which of the
standardized options within the template best
describes or represents their child. Selecting
the background wallpaper, font style and size.
and colors or theme that will set the visual and
esthetic tone of the page begins the process of
constructing a web page for a deceased child.
One site describes this personalizing affor-
dance as an opportunity to, 'choose a theme
that reflects your loved one's personality and
add background music' (MemoryOf, 2009b).

A parent can choose, for example, to represent
their child with the pre-set themes of angels on
a sky blue background or electric guitars against
a brick wall. In addition to background waU-
paper, theme and color, templates also have
multiple pre-set categories: 'hfe timeHne', 'visi-
tor guestbook', 'flowers', 'candles'; 'music and
graphics' (etc.), some of which are discussed
in more detau below in our analysis. Readily
available examples are often provided to the
prospective cUent on the sites, which nearly
always have 'featured memorials', often appear-
ing on the birthday of the deceased or as 'newly
added' memorials.
As we discuss in this paper, these templates
enable the creation of a visually rich repre-
sentation of the deceased chud and a means
of communicating with and about the chud.
More significantly, the compelling setting that
is created with a web page affords a distinctive
relational setting for both bereaved parent and
deceased child. Specifically, the Web affords
what Kenneth Grogan caUs 'absent presence'
that state of divided or diverted consciousness
... [in which] one is physically present, but is
absorbed by a technologically mediated world of
elsewhere' (Layne, 2002, p. 227). We argue that
the compeHng visual and communicative affor-
dances of virtual memorials — the absent present
they invite — may offer some parents a means
of engaging and transforming the Uved experi-
ence of their child's death into forms of sociality
which include that absent child's presence. Not
only does the Web afford this transcendence of
time and space, but it enables a distinctive 'co-

presence' or 'sense of being with other' (Zhao,
2003, p. 450) that is both deeply meaningful to
parents and rich vdth communicative poten-
tial. Most sites offer a free trial period (a few
weeks to a few months) after which the cli-
ent must subscribe to a Web hosting package.
2012 419
Some packages vary only by duration; others
by storage size, graphics capacity and duration.
From the Memory-ofcom site:
Creating and editing the memorial is free. Hosting is
free for 2 weeks. Very modest monthly, annual or ever-
lasting hosting fees are charged thereafter, a portion
of which is donated to the International Federation of
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. (MemoryOf,
2009b)
Nearly all sites advertise themselves as 'free';
but few are without eventual costs. The fees
vary, but are generally under US$100 if indi-
viduals choose a one-time 'everlasting' fee (e.g.,
Memory-of com, Virtual-memorials.com). The
on-line immortality and 'continuing' bonds
promised by some memorial hosting sites as
a property of Internet technology is, in fact,
dependent on the user's continued willingness
or ability to pay.

What is known about those who create vir-
tual memorials? In one content analysis of one
of the largest web cemeteries. Virtual Memorial
Gardens, it was found that only about 10% of
the memorials were created by parents for their
chudren, while the largest number of memorials
(about one-third of the total) were created by
children for their parents (deVries & Rutherford,
2004, p. 14). A second study analyzing three
other virtual cemeteries, found that just over 10%
of memorials were for children under 18 years of
age (Roberts & Vidal, 2000, p. 525). Roberts
and Vidal (2000, p. 530) also found that about
28% of the memorials surveyed were addressed
directly to the deceased, especially if they were
created by women. While we have not done a
systematic investigation of factors like ethnic-
ity and class in our study, we have noticed that
large minority groups (African-Americans, First
Nations, for example) are conspicuous mainly
due to their under-representation. While there
are certainly sites created by mothers and fathers
as well as posts by fathers and other male kin,
our sense is that memorializing children and
expressing grief on-line is predominantly done
by women. A recent study of SIDS memo-
rial websites found that they are 'overwhelm-
ingly created by mothers' (Finlay & Krueger,
2011, p. 30). This may be linked to broad and
longstanding cultural patterns which equate
public expressions of grief, care of bodies and
graves with women, as well as the forms of work
women ofren do to record families — maintain-
ing photo albums, writing Christmas letters, and
scrap-booking activities (Wills, 2010). The issue

of gender clearly merits frirther study, particu-
larly regarding questions about gendered forms
of bereavement and the finding in at least one
study that mothers and fethers created memo-
rial posts for sons more often than they did for
daughters (Musambira et al., 2007, p. 272).
There is considerable variation in the resulting
memorials for children. Some template-based
memorials are Uttle more than a home page vÁÚi
the child's name, photograph, and brief descrip-
tion and perhaps one or two additional pages
of images; some are elaborate sites with pages
for the 'child's story', slideshow, 'Daddy's girl',
'Friends', 'News stories', 'Organ donation cam-
paign,' and so on. In this paper, we focus on the
following: (1) the way in which deceased chil-
dren are re-created virtually in text and images;
(2) parents' use of the interactive capacity of the
Web to sustain a relationship with the deceased;
(3) the ways in which deceased children exist
and Uve on through social networks of bereaved
parents; and (4) the implications on-line memo-
riaiization has for the construction of death itself
As we suggest in the conclusion to the paper, all
of these have impHcations for the overall well-
being of those who utilize on-line memorials as
a way of expressing and assuaging their grief
REPRESENTING THE DECEASED CHILD
Virtual websites provide parents with a virtual
place to represent their deceased child through
a limited suite of multiple media choices:
background wallpaper, themes, and graphics,
as well as by uploading user-generated content
such as photographs, video, text, and music.

Within these variations, the dominant colors of
the sites are most ofren muted and pastel with
background wallpaper of a faded lightiy colored
image — clouds, angel wings, white roses, foot-
prints in white sand, a teddy bear, or decorative
hearts. Not insignificantly, these backgrounds
420 Volume 2 1 , Issue 4, December 2012 © eContent
Management Pty Ltd
Death and grief on-hne
evoke a sense of purity, softness, and innocence,
characteristics commonly associated with children,
especially young children. Memorials in which
parents have selected intense or dark colored
borders and backgrounds or bright font colors
(hot pink, neon orange and Hme green) are evi-
dence of the extent to which templates afford
individuaUzation, but they are rare and visually
jarring by comparison. What stands out against
the subdued, softly colored backgrounds on
most sites is the individual deceased chud, repre-
sented through images and text.
Images, especially user-generated photo-
graphs, figure prominently on the memorial
sites. At a minimum, there is a photograph of
the chud on the main page of the site, but most
sites include additional photographs under a tab
denoted as 'photo album' or 'sKde show'. On
these pages, some parents choose to create a
visual biography of snapshots, arranged chrono-
logically. Usually this begins with a photograph

of the mother during pregnancy, ultrasound
images, and photographs of the child during
infancy, birthdays, with friends, and with the
family. Children engaged in the prototypi-
cal activities of childhood: baseball. Brownies,
swimming, with a pet, on a grandparent's lap,
etc. The images are almost entirely of happy,
active, vivacious, and loving and loved children.
Even on sites for children who have died aft:er a
protracted illness, there are relatively few pho-
tographs of the child in bed or inactive. Video
clips are infrequent — perhaps because they cost
more to maintain on some sites due to their large
size. As video production becomes more acces-
sible, and storage space more affordable, video
may become more commonplace.
Templates for websites also enable par-
ents to provide textual representations of their
child. Clicking tabs entitled 'X's Story' usually
lead to pieces parents have written about the
chud. These narratives ofren eulogize the child,
describing the emotional significance of the
child's birth for the parent(s), positive aspects
of the child's character, endearing habits, vivid
memories or anecdotes, accomplishments at
school, particular talents (singing, sports), love
for their family, commitment to their friends.
and strength of faith (see also Geser, 1998, p. 7).
Poems and song lyrics are a common textual
feature of the memorials, and some sites enable
parents to add an audio button to hear the song.
Especially common are Eric Clapton's Tears in
Heaven written to commemorate the death of
the musician's young son and Avril Lavigne's

Slipped Away, which has become a sort of
anthem of remembrance to those who have
died by suicide.
Less frequently, parents include examples of
the child's writing and drawing. As one mother
wrote: 'Here in cyberspace, I vwll try to create
a place where [my daughter] can express her-
self. Memorials for teenage children sometimes
include a playlist to hear the child's favorite
music. These are parental creations of salient cre-
ative elements in their children's lives - where
they have a continuing form of agency.
In images and texts on the sites, children are
always depicted positively — even as 'perfect'—
and referred to as 'hero', 'angel', 'princess'.
These idealized representations of the child are
especially evident in clip art displayed on the
sites. Through butterflies, cute chubby angels,
rainbows, wide-eyed teddy bears, and lacy val-
entine style hearts underscored by phrases such
as 'Daddy's Little Angel', 'God Needed an
Angel', 'Too early too soon', and 'Special Girl',
the deceased child appears as exemplifying the
very best, and highly sentimentalized qualities
of childhood. The chud is represented as special
and unique, with desirable skills and tremendous
potential, and as an individual bringing some-
thing valuable and distinctive to their family,
friends and community. Little or nothing is said
about disobedience or misbehavior on the part of
the child or strained parent—chud relationships.
These are sites about hfe, about children as
active, happy, joyful and as a source of deep
pleasure and pride to their friends, families, and

others. Thus, through text and image, parents
both write their chud back into existence and
create an extended social value for the deceased
child (Godel, 2007).
Children's virtual memorials do not often
include explicit descriptions of the child's
death, although we note that at least one site
2012 421
enables parents to choose cause of death from
the template drop down menu and have the
selected cause appear on the memorial home
page^. Some websites contain a brief mention of
the circumstances of the child's death, but it is
often non-specific. The child was 'taken', 'had
to leave too early', or there was a 'tragic death'.
A recurring exception here are memorials for
children who died accidentally, especially in car
accidents, drowning or drapery cord strangu-
lation, which may include a description of the
events surrounding the child's death. Memorials
for children who have died following prolonged
physical illness may document their s t r u ^ e s ,
but many do not. For children who committed
suicide, there are generally only oblique refer-
ences to a child's struggles with depression or
mental illness; more often, what is highlighted
is the parents' shock that their child was even
contemplating ending his or her own life.

Very few sites include photographs of the
child's funeral or even mention a funeral; although
some include photos of the physical headstone
or grave marker. What is particularly striking is
the complete absence of images of the child after
death. We note here the historical popularity
of mortuary photography in the late 1800s and
early 1900s in Australia, Canada, Great Britain
and the USA (Ruby, 1995). The near absence
of these photographs on the current memorials
for school age children contrasts starkly with the
growing practice of including photographs of
death on virtual memorials for miscarried fetal
remains or still bom infants (Godel, 2007). The
absence of images of deceased children is, we
believe, deeply significant and underscores the
profoundly destabilizing impact of child death in
an affluent, medicalized society. In some sense,
masking the visibility of the death of a child may
enable a new form of life for that child. Yet, we
suggest that more is at work than simply hid-
ing child death by not posting images of bed-
ridden children or of a child's body in a casket.
Specifically, the affordances of contemporary
virtual memorials — the ability afforded to par-
ents to update the site, to add or replace images
vvww.gonetoosoon.org
and graphics, and, in particular, as we discuss in
the next section, the capacity afforded for parents
and others to communicate to the child are cen-
tral to this sense of continuance. The memorial
sites we are describing are essentially a way to
construct the deceased child as existing in a kind

of on-line afterlife where they have escaped both
the travails of life and the limitations of death.
We turn now to the communicative affor-
dance of virtual memorials, specifically the abil-
ity to post comments to the sites. Nearly aU of
the on-line memorials we have visited include
posted comments. Individuals post brief com-
ments to the site by 'lighting' a virtual candle,
signing a virtual guestbook, or by sending a
'tribute;' each of these options is usually free.
In addition, visitors can communicate by send-
ing a 'gift', that is, purchasing a virtual flower,
stuffed animal, balloon or other image to be
displayed on the memorial. Tallies of categories
of communication — candles lit or gifts sent, for
example - are displayed on the front page of the
memorial offering a sort of gauge or measure
of sociality. As is common on other web pages
memorials also have a counter tracking and dis-
playing the number of'visitors' to the site.
It is not always possible to discern the rela-
tionship of the post author to the child, but
a few general points can be made. Again, we
note that female kin, mothers, grandmothers
and aunts make many of the posts to children's
memorials. But there are also comments posted
by a wide range of individuals - other family
and friends of the deceased's child, the parents
of those friends, the child's teachers, workmates
of the bereaved parents, as well as by individu-
als previously unknown to the child and his/
her parents, and even by individuals who come
upon the site by accident. That many of the sites
have built in links not only to post a comment

but also to 'share' the site by email or to social
networking sites like Facebook, is an affordance
which, as we show in the next sections, encour-
ages the social aspects of these sites and their
forms of on-line bereavement. In the remainder
of the paper, we discuss comments from parents
and from individuals unknown to the family,
particularly other bereaved parents.
Management Pty Ltd
PARENTAL POSTS
Posted comments by parents are similar in many
aspects of hnguistic style to those posted to a
personal page on a social networking site or sent
via cell phone text. They are brief, usually just
a few Unes in length, informal and familiar in
tone, and include language compression such as
abbreviations and using numbers, single letters
or other characters to represent a word or emo-
tion (e.g., :-), I < 3 u****). While the longer
narratives uploaded to the memorials on pages
entitled 'His Story' or 'Our Precious Girl' are
often written about the child in the third per-
son, comments posted by parents address the
child directly ('you'). Parental posts include
fond salutations, nicknames, deep expressions
of love, loss and sadness and hope for a time
when parent and child are reunited. Parents
send birthday wishes and holiday greetings, and

updates of family events. Their posts include
the mundane elements of daily life: seasonal
changes; blooming gardens; the activities and
accomplishments of siblings; family members;
and friends.
I miss you my beautiful angel:
I think of you every second of the day and it still
brings tears to my eyes and I get a lump in my throat.
Mom
Mom lit a candle: 'Happy heavenly bday . I wish u
were here to b 19.1 miss u and love u with all my heart
buddy ... Have fun ok sweety?'
... I miss you more and more as the days come and go.
People always say that it gets better with time ... but it
hasn't for me in the 5 months that you've been gone; I
know that death is a very sad thing but knowing that
you will be there waiting for me gives me every reason
not to be scared of death. Know always that your are
sorely missed and deeply loved. Mama
Parents also instruct their deceased children
('be good', 'keep warm' 'be strong') and some-
times ask for assistance.
Watch over auntie. She'll be missing us.
MOM lit a candle: 'K , surgery tomorrow, watch
over me, keep me safe, R still needs me. I luv you
tator bug'

hello pickle just lighting a quick candle to tell u to
wrap up its rather nippy outside. All my love now and
forever mummy xxxxxxxxxx
The themes noted here — expressions of
sadness, watching over the living, reunion,
and references to angels — have been noted in
other surveys of web memorials (deVries &
Rutherford, 2004). Our fmdings also echo the
work of Williams and Merton (2009, p. 82) who
found that 'adolescents continued visiting and
posting to their dead peers' websites' months
after the death. They, too, found that griev-
en talked direcdy to the deceased, 'frequently
discussed their current situations, new events
taking place, and future plans as if the deceased
were Hstening and stiU invested in the fiiture
of the living' (Walter et al., 2011; Williams &
Merton, 2009, p. 82).
Mothers and other female kin post comments
regularly and frequendy (several times a month)
and they continue to do so for several years.
The compelling nature of this form of com-
munication is evident particularly in the posts
from parents and other kin who apologize to the
deceased child for not posting more often or for
missing a few days.
XXX Nite nite precious angel xxx Sorry for lack of can-
dles but been to hosp every day with N's Mummy as
her new baby due next week and they keeping a close
eye on her:-) xx
There is some evidence in the posts that the
communication is reciprocal. A few memorials

include their accounts of 'signs' of the child's
communication to them — a heart shaped pud-
dle, a cat knocking over letters that spelled the
child's name, a child's photograph found in an
unexpected place. Whue we have not yet stud-
ied in detail memorials hosted by Christian
organizations, we note they do have a distinc-
tive affordance — places for parents to display
and share what are referred to as ADCs — After
Death Communication.
The transcendence of time and space afforded
by the Internet enables a continued visual pres-
ence of the deceased anywhere, anytime, by
anyone (Geser, 1998, p. 12). But virtual memo-
rials do more than enable the deceased to be
2012 423
seen and known; one of the main characteristics
of Web 2.0 memorials is their capacity to absorb
new material from both parents and visitors to
memorial sites. Thus, virtual memorials not only
keep the deceased visually present, but enliv-
ened and socially embedded — enmeshed in
the on-going narrative and activities of a fam-
ily, ascribing a social role and activities to the
deceased, open and accessible to communica-
tion from parents and family, and, as we will
discuss shortly, supported by a grief community
of known and unknown individuals.

Through their posted comments, parents can
demonstrate publicly and to their child their
own worth as parents; that is, as parents who
care about and who will not forget their child,
and who continue to nurture and communicate
with that child. Moreover, comments posted to
a child's memorial give further evidence of what
it means to be a parent after the death of that
child (Finlay & Krueger, 2011).
In contrast to the closed and private nature
of a funeral (or a photo album in the home, or
a box of cherished mementos kept in a closet)
on-line memorials, as Codel (2007) suggests,
blur or reconfigure a public-private dichotomy,
extending what Aries (1981) called the 'cult of
memory' into the unregulated anonymous pub-
lic spaces of the Internet. We note that some
virtual memorials have password-protected
access and thus are 'private' and inaccessible to
individuals who are unknown to the parents.
Yet, the public and interactive affordance of
the virtual memorials is evoked specifically by
other parents who include text addressing the
viewer, 'inviting' them to 'explore' the site,
'get to know' their child, and post comments,
add photographs and anecdotes about the child.
Creating the site and inviting the participation
of others, even unknown 'iewers, is a way for
parents to, as they say, 'do something' for their
child, by which they often mean, ensure that the
child is not forgotten (see also Roberts, 2004,
pp. 61—62). The public-ness of these sites may
underlie the perfection of represented children;
children in public view are often entreated to

be on their 'best behavior'. These sites make a
deceased child public and accessible in a way that
many Canadians might find unthinkable for a
live child. Furthermore, what we have found on
some memorials is the importance to bereaved
parents of 'sharing' their child with others out-
side the Emily. Evoked here is the idea that a
child who dies does not 'belong' only to the
family, but is 'a gift' not only to parents but also
to others. The notion of deceased children as
'gifts' and as 'shared' with strangers opens up
questions about the implicit notion that children
are essentially property, or owned in the first
place. At one level, of course, simply by creat-
ing the on-line memorial, some parents are both
anticipating viewers and willing to make their
child public. But, the technology fiirther affords
this transformation of the child into a public
gift. Many memorial sites have built in links to
'share' the site by email, Facebook, MySpace, or
Twitter. In fact, the social, relational, and public
and interactive potential of the sites is engaged
specifically by some parents who enable view-
ers to not only view the site but sign the vir-
tual guestbook and post comments. So, what do
those outside the family say in their comments
to these memorial sites?
POSTS BY OTHER BEREAVED PARENTS
Among those individuals posting to the site but
unknown to the family of the deceased are other
bereaved parents - again, usually mothers, many
of whom refer to themselves as 'Angel mom-
mies'. Bereaved mothers often post comments

directly to the parents of the child featured in
the memorial. These comments frequently
affirm and acknowledge the pain and suffering
which they know parents are feeling and they
identify the loss of a child as something unique.
For example, bereaved parents speak of being
'connected forever', 'going down a road with
no return', and of being part of a special group.
... It's a road no one wants to go down, but once you
have you can never come back. Thank you for sharing
your angel with me. I know we don't physically know
each other, but I feel that bereaved parents are con-
nected forever. I admire you for being so strong such
a wonderful inspiration to others and for being such a
great mommy to your angel. God bless you and your
family. -Angel Mommy To C ~
Management Pty Ltd
I am so very sorry for your loss. There is no greater
pain than losing a child. Your journey has just begun.
You will find so much love and support on this site as
you continue to share your beautifiil L with all of
us. As you read about other children who have lefi: this
world way too soon, you will see a special link with all
of our children. It will not ease the pain, but may give
you hope at times when you feel there is none. There
are so many of those times as you and your family walk
this road. Please know that you all are in our thoughts
and prayers. I look forward to learning more about

L and will stop by again. God Bless!
P.S. I see that L has a brother by the name of D ,
that is my son's middle name.
In some cases parental comments respond to
a newly bereaved parent's anguished plea for
someone to whom they can talk or who wiU
understand their pain. The posts directed at par-
ents often contain advice.
Dear A ,
The holidays are the worst times especially the first
year. Take one breath 1 min and breathe again and one
step at a time. Remember be kind to yourself. Sending
cyber hugs.
Mom To G (Forever Four)
I am sorry for your loss ... I wish I could tell you that
the pain will go away but I have yet to find relief from
my own pain. I will pray for you and the family ...
God be with you. S mother of D .
We have noticed that some bereaved moth-
ers post repeatedly to multiple sites, promising to
return or 'stop in again', evoking the language of
neigjibours who migjit drop by to comfort a femily.
God bless you and your family. G is such a beauti-
fiil little girl. I'm so sorry for your loss. My litde boy
died ... Grief can be overwhelming at times. If you
ever need to talk, let me know. I'll be there for you.
I don't know if I'm doing this correcdy? I just wanted to

express my feelings of loss to all of you and for myself,
who lost a 31-year-old son ... I wish I had a computer
at home. I think this wotild be good for me. It is a
worry for me of how I've been thinking lately. I'm not
liking my family too much lately either. No one talks
about him, including my kids. They give me these
one liners. I'm angry, I'm so very sad, I'm alone in my
thoughts and I'm alone even though I'm married, but
not to the father of my son. Divorced. I tried to call
my ex up and talk to him but he didn't return my call.
I would be so nice to talk to him because he is the only
one who knows how I feel. We were talking before?
... I have good days and a lot of bad ones. I went back
to work after 2 weeks and now am so miserable ...
1 hate coming to work. They do not understand and
expect me to just be 'back to normal'. I am ready to
just walk out and stay home. I wanted to let you know
that I really liked your site. Read every page. It also
helps me touch base with someone who has lost their
child at the same age. I feel I can relate better. I hope I
hear from you. I would love to continue to talk.
Not unexpectedly perhaps, deceased children
figure prominently in posts from other par-
ents. Bereaved parents may note a connection
between their own child and the child in the
memorial; the same name, same birthday, same
cause of death. Praise for 'sharing' the child is
twinned with praise for making the site; both
indicate 'being a good parent'. Sharing also
enables a distinctive kind of sociality in which
bereaved parents address their posts directly to
the deceased child, inviting him or her to know
and engage with their own chud.

R 's Mom lit a candle: 'G I hope your skat-
boarding with my R in Heaven. Love & prayers to
you & your family. I care'
Us Mom Ut a candle: 'T I will keep you in my
prayers and please be a friend to my L I worry about
him being alone'
Dear K 's family
my heart breaks for you all in the Loss of your sweet
Angel
My son O also had AML and BMT he lost his battle
with Leukemia ...
My O loved playing Uno too:-) one of his litde
friends D is in heaven to so maybe the three of them
can get together for a game:-)
I know how much you miss your brave Daughter as
my O would say 'leukemia sux'
with Love O 's Mum
my baby boy is up there too, maybe you can be
angel friends x x x
My thoughts are with you, your daughter is safe with
mine playing with the other angels xxxx
© îContent Management Pty Ltd Volume 21, Issue 4, December
2012 425

In addition to suggestions for play dates and
companionship, there are in'itations for birthdays
and for 'Angelversaries*. These kinds of connec-
tions add to the sense that deceased children have
a life enabled by the Internet. In order to make
these social connections among deceased children,
bereaved parents often include in their comments
hyperlinks to their own child's memorial. A few
memorial site templates specifically afford these
connections between or among deceased chil-
dren, encouraging visitors to help the deceased
make these 'angel friends' or 'Forever Friends' by
including links to other children's on-line memo-
rials. Roberts (2004) refers to these links among
web memorials as 'web rings' and notes they are
'most often created for deceased children' (p. 42).
The existence of these links enables a distinctive
web surfing, one in which the viewer moves firom
one memorial to another, from one dead child to
another, from one anguished parent to another,
potentially building a distinctive form of sociality.
We highlight the role of memorial templates in
affording such sociality. At least one site^ allows
visitors to construct a 'Garden*. Visitors select
particular memorials, identify their relationship
to that deceased individual from a lengthy drop
down menu, and then indicate if they wish to
receive text m e s s i e or email notifications about
updates to the selected memorials. This way of
understanding the Internet and death as a spe-
cial kind of place is deeply connected to com-
mon but also archaic spatial notions of an afterlife;
essentially as a kind of heaven where the deceased

constitute a community of souls or spirits which
communicate with each other, as well as at times,
with the living.
Because child deaths are far less common
in the general population, many bereaved par-
ents do not know anyone else in their imme-
diate social network that has experienced this
kind of loss. Afforded through the Web, the
co-presence of other bereaved parents — the
sense of being with those who understand —
may provide a helpful sense of community
(Walter et al., 2011, p. 290) and, as Finlay and
Krueger (2011, p. 39) articulate, can be seen as
{www.gonetoosoon.org)
an important part of grief work in which parents
publically present 'themselves to outsiders as
individuals in mourning*. The connections
and sociality afforded by the virtual memorials
may be particularly important for parents who
have a lost a child to a rare disease (see Geser,
1998; Roberts, 2004). This function of virtual
memorials may reflect what Geser (1998) has
described as a 'trend toward ... the substitution
of professional services by informal 'self-help*
circles' (p. 7). While some comments indicate
a willingness to talk, there is little evidence of
any interaction or dialogue actually occurring,
but perhaps it is taking place elsewhere (e.g., on
email, Facebook, telephone). We also note there
are links on some memorial hosting sites for grief
resources, including an on-call grief counselor.
We have also seen many virtual memorials

for children that include evidence of the ways
in which parents seek to transform the death
of their child into forms of social action. The
more common forms of social action include
memorial scholarships, raising fiinds for animal
shelters, public awareness campaigns for specific
diseases and causes of death (mothers against
drunk driving, youth suicide prevention, SIDS,
medical negligence, murder, drapery cord stran-
gulations). The Web affords this kind of contact
by serving both as a resource and as a stream
of continuing communication for those who
wish to become involved in on-going social
action, or to initiate it as well. For example, one
African-American woman took the story of her
son's death due to gang violence to the news
media. This galvanized a group of mothers, all
of whom had lost adolescent boys to violence
in their neighborhood, to hold a demonstra-
tion about inadequate policing, poverty and lack
of parental responsibility for African-American
youth. Their grief became conjoined with social
justice, and prevention of violence. They saw
their sons' deaths as something that should not
have happened in a just society.
Creating memorials can be therapeutic due
to shared grief with others who 'understand' but
are not part of the immediate circle of friends. It
should be noted that friends and family some-
times say precisely the 'wrong thing' to bereaved
Management Pty Ltd

parents. Comments Uke, 'Don't worry, you can
always have another one', or 'At least s/he lived
to see her/his own child bom' are especially
commonplace; tbe second phrase directed to
parents whose adult children have died. While
they may be well intentioned, as we suggested
earlier, such phrases may strongly 'discount' or
disenfranchise the emotional experience of the
bereaved parent. Sucb comments are notice-
ably absent from web memorials wbere posts
from others may even address some of the fatu-
ous commentary offered by those who have not
shared the experience. Postings that affirm that
bereaved parents can never truly sbare tbeir grief
with anyone other than another bereaved par-
ent may offer transient solace, however, because
tbey also imply tbat tbe suffering parent occupies
a kind of invisible, even permanent, Uminal state.
P O S T S BY OTHER INDIVIDUALS UNKNOWN TO
THE FAMILY
Tbere are a significant number of posts from
individuals otber tban bereaved parents wbo
identify as unknown to tbe family and wbo post
comments Hke, 'I came across tbis site by acci-
dent ... so sorry for your loss'. As evident in
these examples, there are a variety of ways to
'happen' upon an on-line deceased cbud and
bis/her bereaved parents.
I found this story by accident and was taken back ...

Just to let you know, your family is in the prayers of
unknown others.
I've come across the video? becatise my sons name is
[the same as yours]. This is so heartbreaking ... I am
sssoooo incredibly sorry for your loss. God bless you
and your family. You will always be in my thoughts ...
I pray for your strength and courage.
I hope you can find the strength to go on as before. I
have not been thru anything even similar but watching
your memorial site was very emotional for me. May
you one day find peace. Again my deepest condolences.
Tbe emotional tenor of many of tbe quotes by
'passers-by' is striking; tbe individuals describe
being moved to tears, 'weeping', and feeling
deep sadness for individuals tbey never knew.
Tbe rieb photographic, audio, and narrative ele-
ments of many of the children's memorials does
create the sense that the viewer has, even just
briefly, 'gotten to know' the child and his or
her family. Nevertheless, we would suggest that
those who 'drop by' or 'bappen upon' children's
memorials seem to engage in a particular form
of sociality common on the Web — an anony-
mous intimacy in wbich viewers offer heartfelt
messages to strangers, without sustained social
contact. But these sorts of messages also implic-
itly offer social approval to the bereaved par-
ents, approval of bow tbe cbild is depicted and
approval for sharing that child.
Two sorts of posts from strangers seem to offer
something different. One, we have noticed that

there are individuals other than bereaved parents
who post to multiple sites with cut and pasted com-
ments — only the name of the deceased is changed.
These posts contain inspirational messages, usu-
ally from religious sctipture and they contain
specific advice for parents; to pray and to turn to
the Bible and to God for strengtb and direction.
We are speculating here, but posting sucb com-
ments to virtual memorials feels like a new form of
evangelism or door-to-door proselytizing. Two,
altbougb they are very rare, there are some nega-
tive comments. Since hosting services specifically
for memorials enable tbe site creator to moder-
ate and disable comments, it may be that negative
comments occur more frequently, but are deleted.
We bave found negative comments in response to
memotiak posted t b r o u ^ YouTube, but only on
sites wbich contain images of a cbild's corpse. Tbe
objection in tbese comments appears to be a con-
cern with proptiety, with making an intensely pri-
vate matter into a public spectacle. Perhaps these
images provoke strong negative reactions because
sucb very early deatbs are usually not only bidden,
but unspoken. Or, perhaps it is precisely because
tbese images do not blur tbe boundary between
tbe dead and tbe living and do not enable a dead
child to 'live on' in pleasing images.
CONCLUSION
We have suggested here that the dead can now
live on visually and socially in and through the
aSbrdances of the Web and in particular, tbat
deceased cbildren represented tbrougji virtual
memotiak in some sense exist and live on tbrougb

2012 427
^Sr Lisa M Mitchell et al.
social networks of bereaved parents. Enabled
by the a-temporal space of the Internet and the
technologically constituted co-presence of virtual
communication, deceased children are parented
and nurtured, encouraged to interact with other
dead children, and attract the communication of
people whom they never met in their lifetimes.
Furthermore, in the social setting enabled by vir-
tual memorials the usual 'rules' about reciprocal
interaction are loosened, and the dead appear to be
accessible, present, attentive, listening and some-
times even communicative (Walter et al., 2011,
p. 16). The interaction between bereaved parents,
femily, ftiends and the viàder public contributes to
this on-line memorialization of children, who in a
sense, never really recede after they go 'on-line', but
are transformed into enduring but novel versions
of their remembered lives, liberated from conven-
tional experience of linear time. Furthermore, this
emerging construction of death is deeply rooted in
profoundly spatialized ideas about an eternal after-
life as a culturally defined place. Accessible anytime
and from anywhere, the deceased child is always
there, on the Web or on the computer screen; not
lost, not gone, but there. For some parents and
viewers, virtual memorials may be a less a place
and more a communication portal by which to
communicate with the deceased child in heaven.
Virtual memorials may even imply a kind of ethe-

real techno-presence whereby the idea of heaven
is being reconfigured as technologically mediated
space/time: a digital set of pearly gates.
In closing, we return to the issue of parental
bereavement and grief in this technologically and
socially mediated context. We argue that under
the guise of addressing or even treating parental
grief, on-line memorials may do more than simply
accommodate that grief; they may perpetuate it. By
enabling the deceased to persist, parenting to con-
tinue, and grief to be continually communicated,
acknowledged and legitimated within a commu-
nity of bereaved parents and a wider public, the
Web affords an on-going grief that is unhinged
partially from longstanding ideas of 'closure*, pri-
vacy, and a separation of the living and the dead.
The movement and maintenance of deceased
individuals into the 'cloud' (a physical metaphor
of heavenly space) storage of memorial websites
can also be viewed as part of what Becker (2000)
describes as the '... current discourses of techno-
science, body, nature, and even life ... described
as code, text, or information. On the one hand,
classical dichotomies (body/mind, subject/object,
man/machine) and their restrictions are dissolvings
on the other hand, this discourse often reveals a
hidden desire to ignore both the fragility and sense
giving capacity of materiality' (p. 361). To the list
of 'classical dichotomies' we can add: life/death
and body/soul (which predates body/mind and
persists in contemporary religious imaginations)
and, the more recent on-line/off-line.
We argue that this blurring of dichotomies,

openness, and a-temporal and a-spatial nature of
grief is particularly so for challenging or 'socially
problematic' forms of death (Walter et al., 2011,
p. 286), such as those of children. While that
aspect of on-line memorials might be seen as
counterproductive, we argue that the enduring
bereavement afforded by the Web is precisely its
attraction and value for parents whose children
have died. As bereavement workers are increas-
ingly coming to realize, for parents their 'grief
is [their] link to the child, grief [is what] keeps
[them] connected* (Arnold & Gemma cited
in Corr, Fuller, Bamickol, & Corr, 1991, pp.
50—51). And, in this sense, virtual memorials
enable that link, that 'continuous bond'.
Clearly virtual memorials evoke the recent
trend in bereavement care that death may lead
to an altered, rather than a severed, relationship
between the living and the deceased (Howarth,
2000; Klass et al., 1996). The notion that the
dead are present in the lives of the living as forces
or entities which can move between dimensions
is one that will be familiar to many members of
non-Western cultural traditions, and to students
of religions which emphasize founding ancestors,
'dream times', villages of the dead, for example.
Indeed, there are historical examples of technol-
ogy mediating the usually separate worlds of the
living and the dead. Spiritualist sects during the
19th and early 20th century began to flourish
with the electrical revolution and the advent of
radio. In some respects, as we argue, the Web —
especially Web 2.0 — can greatly enhance this type
of relational sensibility because it is experienced

Management Pty Ltd
as a kind of disembodied realm where the Hv-
ing take on virtual forms, and entirely novel vir-
tual entities can also come into being. As such,
the cultural construction of death as a form of
on-line afterlife has developed and appears to
be transforming death itself into a virtual realm.
When conflated with common metaphors for
digital storage space such as 'the Cloud', notions
of an on-Hne afterHfe have become normative
expressions of the bereaved who use Web 2.0
technologies to deal with grief The deaths of
children may bring this into especially sharp reHef
because they invert prevaiHng cultural expecta-
tions about Hfe course, aging and death. If we
expect our children to Hve on long after us, but
they die long before we do, perhaps the nature
of the separation itself can more easily be under-
stood to He in an ambiguously defmed time and
space — an absent present. It is possible to see on-
Hne memorials as a communication process that
moves in both directions — from Hving to dead
and back again. For example, FinalThoughts.
com allows a person to share their final wishes
and feeHngs with friends, relatives, and pets after
death. Besides hosting email messages deHvered,
Hterally from the grave (a designated 'guardian
angel' alerts the site to your demise) subscribed
members of FinalThoughts can attach various
forms to emau messages. The forms include:

The Personal Property Allocator'™; Pet Lover's
Organizer''"'*'; and Final Arrangements Planner^"^.
In discussing this communication between the
Hving and the dead, Jones (2004) notes:
... the technologies that bring us together via media-
tion are also ones recording our interactions, and we are
coming increasingly to save those interactions, external-
izing our memory and interactions with others, living
or dead. Like the protagonist o f Minority Report' who
relives a conversation with his deceased son, or like the
families of victims of the 9/11 attacks who have record-
ings of last e-mails and phone conversations, we have at
least increased the number of ways we have to maintain
presence. As we move into newer media and experi-
ence still newer media technologies such as immersive
virtual reality, we will no doubt increase the quantity of
the means of presence . . . . (p. 87)
Jones (2004) goes on to conclude, how-
ever, that, '... our desire to remember and be
retnembered, and our need to grieve, have not,
and wiU not, change' (p. 87). Unlike Jones, we
suggest that shaping grief through the affor-
dances of technology may in fact be transform-
ing bereavement and grief because a continuing
interactive and engaged presence of the dead on
the Internet has the potential, at least, to prolong
grief, rather than assuage it. Perhaps this happens
through a denial of corporeal existence: embod-
ied Hving. As Becker (2000) states, '... notions of
virtual identities, bodily representations in cyber-
space, and extropian dreams of a post-biological
self all have one thing in common: they ignore
or denigrate the dynamic and sensory capacity of

materiahty, both in the world and in our own
bodies' (p. 362). As such, prolonged grief in pub-
Hc virtual space may also be transforming con-
structions of death, and by virtue of that, also of
Hfe in our society, in ways we are only beginning
to appreciate. O n the other hand, these construc-
tions also seem to be reproducing a set of very
old beHeß about an afterHfe prototypicaUy asso-
ciated with concrete ideas of a populated place.
As such these kinds of imaginings, as Becker
(2000) notes, 'are not revolutionary approaches
in developing new concepts of identity. Instead
they are a reconstruction of old fantasies which
are returning in new technological clothes and
making a great deal of noise' (p. 365).
There are many ways in which bereaved par-
ents seem to be 'primed' to be on the Internet.
They are isolated and transformed fiindamen-
tally by the death of their child; that is, parents
appear not to be in the world or in their bod-
ies in the same way, ever again. They are, then,
an etnbodiment of the absent presence, Hving
without that child but Hving only as a shadow of
their former self, here but forever incomplete.
The shift in reaHty, in sensation, in perception
creates an embodied relational sensibüity that for
some may mesh well with having a virtual chud.
Yet parents who create and maintain on-Hne
memorials and social networks for their dead
children may find they cannot easily leave the
virtual places they produce. For this would mean
both 'abandoning' the deceased chud, ending a
form of parenting, and severing the on-going
relationships with the dead that others - family.

2012 429
friends and even strangers — have developed. The
palpable presence of someone who is physically
absent defines the haunting experience of grief
When that someone is a child one has brought
into the world any expectation that their death
could be somehow put safely away without on-
going communication seems to lack both com-
passion and common sense.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research reported on here was supported by
a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada; Mary Ellen
Macdonald was the Principal Investigator, Lisa
Mitchell, Peter Stephenson and Susan Cadell
are Co-investigatgors. An earlier version of this
paper was presented at 'Death Down Under'
Conference, University of Sydney, June 27,
2011 by Peter Stephenson and at the American
Anthropological Association Conference,
Montreal, November 19. 2011 by Lisa Mitchell.
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Received 23 September 2011 Accepted 17 August 2012
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CC
CLASSICAL GREEK TRAGEDY
Sophocles
ANTIGONE
SOPHOCLES (496?-406 B.C.)
Antigone
An English Version by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald
Person Represented
ANTIGONE
ISMENE
EURYDICE
CREON
HAIMON

TEIRESIAS
A SENTRY
A MESSENGER
CHORUS
SCENE: Before the Palace of Creon, King of Thebes. A central
double door, and two
lateral doors. A platform extends the length of the façade, and
from this platform
three steps lead down into the “orchestra”, or chorus-ground.
TIME: Dawn of the
day after the repulse of the Argive army from the assault on
Thebes.
PROLOGUE
[ANTIGONE and ISMENE enter from the central door of the
Palace.]
ANTIGONE:
Ismene, dear sister,
You would think that we had already suffered enough
For the curse on Oedipus:1
I cannot imagine any grief
That you and I have not gone through. And now –– 5
Have they told you of the new decree of our King Creon?
ISMENE:
I have heard nothing: I know
That two sisters lost two brothers, a double death

In a single hour; and I know that the Argive army
Fled in the night; but beyond this, nothing. 10
ANTIGONE:
I thought so. And that is why I wanted you
To come out here with me. There is something we must do.
1 Oedipus, once King of Thebes, was the father of Antigone and
Ismene, and of their brothers Polyneices and Eteocles. Oedipus
unwittingly killed his father, Laios, and married his own
mother, Iocaste. When he learned what he had done, he blinded
himself and left Thebes. Eteocles and Polyneices quarreled,
Polyneices was driven out but returned to assault Thebes. In the
battle each brother killed the other; Creon became king and
ordered that Polyneices be left to rot unburied on the battlefield
as a
traitor. [Editors’ note]
ISMENE:
Why do you speak so strangely?
ANTIGONE:
Listen, Ismenê:
Creon buried our brother Eteoclês 15
With military honors, gave him a soldier’s funeral,
And it was right that he should; but Polyneicês,
They fought as bravely and died as miserably,--
They say that Creon has sworn
No one shall burry him, no one mourn for him, 20
But this body must lie in the fields, a sweet treasure

For carrion birds to find as they search for food.
That is what they say, and our good Creon is coming here
To announce it publicly; and the penalty ––
Stoning to death I the public squarel
There it is, 25
And now you can prove what you are:
A true sister, or a traitor to your family.
ISMENE:
Antigone, you are mad! What could I possibly do?
ANTIGONE:
You must decide whether you will help me or not.
ISMENE:
I do not understand you. Help you in what? 30
ANTIGONE:
Ismene, I am going to bury him. Will you come?
ISMENE:
Bury him! You have just said the new law forbids it.
ANTIGONE:
He is my brother. And he is your brother, too.
ISMENE:

But think of the danger! Think what Creon will do!
ANTIGONE:
Creon is not enough to stand in my way. 15
ISMENE:
Ah sister!
Oedipus died, everyone hating him
For what his own search brought to light, his eyes
Ripped out by his own hand; and Iocaste died,
His mother and wife at once: she twisted the cords 40
That strangled her life; and our two brothers died,
Each killed by the other’s sword. And we are left:
But oh, Antigone,
Think how much more terrible than these
Our own death would be if we should go against Creon 45
And do what he has forbidden! We are only women,
We cannot fight with men, Antigone!
The law is strong, we must give in to the law
In this thing, and in worse. I beg the Dead
To forgive me, but I am helpless: I must yield 50
To those in authority. And I think it is dangerous business
To be always meddling.
ANTIGONE:
If that is what you think,
I should not want you, even if you asked to come.
You have made your choice, you can be what you want to be.

But I will bury him; and if I must die, 55
I say that this crime is holy: I shall lie down
With him in death, and I shall be as dear
To him as he to me.
It is the dead
Not the living, who make the longest demands:
We die for ever…
You may do as you like
Since apparently the laws of the god mean nothing to you.
ISMENE:
They mean a great deal to me, but I have no strength
To break laws that were made for the public good.
ANTIGONE:
That must be your excuse, I suppose. But as for me,
I will bury the brother I love.
ISMENE:
Antigone,
I am so afraid for you!
ANTIGONE:
You need not be:
You have yourself to consider, after all.

ISMENE:
But no one must hear of this, you must tell no one!
I will keep it a secret, I promise!
ANTIGONE:
Oh tell it! Tell everyone
Think how they’ll hate you when it all comes out 70
If they learn that you knew about it all the time!
ISMENE:
So fiery! You should be cold with fear.
ANTIGONE:
Perhaps. But I am doing only what I must.
ISMENE:
But can you do it? I say that you cannot.
ANTIGONE
Very well: when my strength gives out, I shall do no more. 75
ISMENE:
Impossible things should not be tried at all.

ANTIGONE:
Go away, Ismene:
I shall be hating you soon, and the dead will too,
For your words are hateful. Leave me my foolish plan:
I am not afraid of the danger; if it means death, 80
It will not be the worst of deaths ––death without honor.
ISMENE:
Go then, if you feel that you must.
You are unwise,
But a loyal friend indeed to those who love you.
[Exit into the Palace. ANTIGONE goes off, L. Enter the
CHORUS.]
PARODOS
CHORUS:
Now the long blade of the sun, lying [Strophe 1] 85
Level east to west, touches with glory
Thebes of the Seven Gates. Open, unlidded
Eye of golden day! O marching light
Across the eddy and rush of Dirce’s stream, 2
Striking the white shields of the enemy 90
Thrown headlong backward from the blaze of morning!
2 Dirce: a stream west of Thebes. [Editor’s note]
CHORAGOS: 3

Polyneices their commander
Roused them with windy phrases,
He the wild eagle screaming
Insults above our land, 95
His wings their shields of snow,
His crest their marshaled helms.
CHORUS: [Antistrophe 1]
Against our seven gates in a yawning ring
The famished spears came onward in the night;
But before his jaws were sated with our blood, 100
Or pine fire took the garland of our towers,
He was thrown back; and as he turned, great Thebes––
No tender victim for his noisy power––
Rose like a dragon behind him, shouting war.
CHORAGOS:
For God hates utterly 105
The bray of bragging tongues;
And when he beheld their smiling,
Their swagger of golden helms,
The frown of his thunder blasted
Their first man from our walls 110
CHORUS: [Strophe 2]
We heard his shout of triumph high in the air
Turn to a scream; far out in a flaming are
He fell with his windy torch, and the earth struck him.
And others storming in fury no less than his
Found shock of death in the dusty joy of battle 115

CHORAGOS:
Seven captains at seven gates
Yielded their clanging arms to the god
That bends the battle-line and breaks it.
These two only, brothers in blood,
Face to face in matchless rage, 120
Mirroring each the other’s death,
Clashed in long combat.
CHORUS: [Antistrophe 2]
But now in the beautiful morning of victory
Let Thebes of the many chariots sing for joy!
With hearts for dancing we’ll take leave of war: 125
Our temples shall be sweet with hymns of praise,
3 Leader of the Chorus. [Editors’ note]
And the long night shall echo with our chorus.
SCENE I
CHORAGUS:
But now at last our new King is coming:
Creon of Thebes, Menoikeus’ son.
In this auspicious dawn of his reign 130
What are the new complexities

That shifting Fate has woven for him?
What is his counsel? Why has he summoned
The old men to hear him?
[Enter CREON from the Palace, C. He addresses the CHORUS
from the top step.]
CREON:
Gentlemen: I have the honor to inform you that our Ship of
State, which recent storms have threatened to destroy, has come
safely to harbor at last, guided by the merciful wisdom of
Heaven. I
have summoned you here this morning because I know that I
can
depend upon you: your devotion to King Laios was absolute;
you
never hesitated in your duty to our late ruler Oedipus; and when
Oedipus died, your loyalty was transferred to his children.
Unfortunately, as you know, his two sons, the princes Eteocles
and
Polyneices, have killed each other in battle, and I, as the next in
blood, have succeeded to the full power of the throne.
I am aware, of course, that no Ruler can expect complete
loyalty from his subjects until he has been tested in office.
Nevertheless, I say to you at the very outset that I have nothing
but
contempt for the kind of Governor who is afraid, for whatever
reason,
to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as
for the
man who sets private friendship above the public welfare, ––I
have
no use for him, either. I call God to witness that if I saw my
country

headed for ruin, I should not be afraid to speak out plainly; and
I need
hardly remind you that I would never have any dealings with an
enemy of the people. No one values friendship more highly than
I;
but we must remember that friends made at the risk of wrecking
our
Ship are not real friends at all.
These are my principles, at any rate, and that is why I have
made the following decision concerning the sons of Oedipus:
Eteocles, who died as a man should die, fighting for his
country, is to
be buried with full military honors, with all the ceremony that is
usual
when the greatest heroes die; but his brother Polyneices, who
broke
his exile to come back with fire and sword against his native
city and
the shrines of his fathers’ gods, whose one idea was to spill the
blood
of his blood and sell his own people into slavery–– Polyneices,
I say,
is to have no burial: no man is to touch him or say the least
prayer for
135
140

145
150
155
160
165
170
him; he shall lie on the plain, unburied; and the birds and the
scavenging dogs can do with him whatever they like.
This is my command, and you can see the wisdom behind it. As

long as I am King, no traitor is going to be honored with the
loyal
man. But whoever shows by word and deed that he is on the side
of
the State,––he shall have my respect while he is living and my
reverence when he is dead.
175
CHORAGOS:
If that is your will, Creon son of Menoikeus,
You have the right to enforce it: we are yours. 180
CREON:
That is my will. Take care that you do your part.
CHORAGOS:
We are old men: let the younger ones carry it out.
CREON:
I do not mean that: the sentries have been appointed.
CHORAGOS:
Then what is t that you would have us do?
CREON:

You will give no support to whoever breaks this law. 185
CHORAGOS:
Only a crazy man is in love with death!
CREON:
And death it is; yet money talks, and the wisest
Have sometimes been known to count a few coins too many.
[Enter SENTRY from L.]
SENTRY:
I’ll not say that I’m out of breath from running, King, because
every
time I stopped to think about what I have to tell you, I felt like
going
back. And all the time a voice kept saying, “You fool, don’t you
know you’re walking straight into trouble?”; and then another
voice:
“Yes, but if you let somebody else get the news to Creon first,
it will
be even worse than that for you!” But good sense won out, at
least I
hope it was good sense, and here I am with a story that makes
no
sense at all; but I’ll tell it anyhow, because, as they say, what’s
going
to happen’s going to happen, and––
190

195
CREON:
Come to the point. What have you to say?
SENTRY:
I did not it. I did not see who did it. You must not punish me for
what someone
else has done.
CREON:
A comprehensive defense! More effective, perhaps,
If I knew its purpose. Come: what is it?
SENTRY:
A dreadful thing… I don’t know how to put it––
CREON:
Out with it!
SENTRY:
Well, then;
The dead man–––

Polyneices––
[Pause. The SENTRY is overcome, fumbles for words. CREON
waits impassively.]
out there––
someone, –– 205
new dust on the slimy flesh!
[Pause. No sign from CREON.]
Someone has given it burial that way, and
Gone …
[Long pause. CREON finally speaks with deadly control.]
CREON:
And the man who dared do this?
SENTRY:
I swear I 210
Do not know! You must believe me!
Listen:
The ground was dry, not a sign of digging, no,
Not a wheel track in the dust, no trace of anyone.
It was when they relieved us this morning: and one of them,
The corporal, pointed to it.
There it was, 215
The strangest––
Look:
The body, just mounded over with light dust: you see?
Not buried really, but as if they’d covered it

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