`I measure the beginning of the days of his dying by the sweet smell of pine boards, freshly cut, stacked neatly in the hallway of this apartment." So begins the tribute to Michael Kibbee, co-creator of the world's first "virtual" cemetery. Before he died earlier this year, Kibbee made his own coffin using the "sweet-smelling pine boards" he had stored in his apartment. He also began the design of what would become the world's first "on-line" cemetery. The World Wide Cemetery offers contributors the opportunity to share the lives of their loved ones in ways that traditional printed death announcements or stone inscriptions do not. Photographs, moving images and even sounds can be included with a monument.
"When a person we love or are close to dies," explains Steve Brauer in the introduction to the cemetery, "the desire to communicate our loss is both natural and strong. The World Wide Web, shared globally by more than 30 million people, is a perfect place to announce the loss of someone we cherish. Such virtual monuments, unlike real ones, will not weather with the passage of time and can be visited easily by people from around the world. Brauer, who created the site together with Michael Kibbee, hopes that the World Wide Cemetery will provide those who erect monuments with `a measure of solace'. For those who visit them they hope that they will provide `delight and wonder in the diversity, uniqueness and accomplishments of its inhabitants'."
One of those inhabitants is Oscar Wilde. Another is Jessica Carr, who died of a malignant tumour when she was two-and-a-half months old. Her mother writes on her tribute to her child: "She died in my arms on February 27th, 1981. Because I have experienced my daughter's birth, life and death, I am a different person. I'm much stronger than I have ever been. My passions are stronger. My awareness of life's finiteness is more acute. I will always miss her but I'm glad that I got to experience the short time that she had."
When visiting a real-life cemetery, visitors sometimes take comfort in being able to leave a memento of their visit. "Leaving flowers" in the virtual cemetery provides a way for visitors to the World Wide Cemetery to do the same. At the bottom of every monument there are opportunities to write your name and a brief message that the site calls "flowers". When finished, the visitor's name and message is recorded.
The World Wide Cemetery can be found at http://www.cemetery.org/ A simple text-only monument costs $7 as a once-off handling fee.
