Parents of dead students use Facebook to connect

PHILADELPHIA – To Dawn Burke, Facebook had only been a simple Web site where her children used to post funny pictures and chat with friends. But when her daughter died, it became a way for her to reconnect with her child and begin the long, uncertain process of healing. \nDawn Burke’s daughter, Dana, a sophomore pre-pharmacy major at Temple University, died last March of a brain stem glioma – a brain tumor – at the age of 20. She was diagnosed in October 2005 when she began experiencing double vision. \nAfter appointments with an eye doctor failed to improve the situation, an MRI revealed the tumor. \nAfter extensive radiation and chemotherapy, mostly while still attending classes at Temple, Dana passed away on March 28. \n“I started using Dana’s laptop,” Burke said. “I went on her e-mail to see what she had and forwarded information to people who didn’t know she had passed away.” \nBurke began to notice that many Facebook e-mail notifications were arriving. She clicked on the links and found dozens of comments and wall posts from her friends. \n“I was a bit tearful at first,” Burke said. “I was happy to see they were still keeping her in their hearts and prayers.” \nBurke is one of many people across the nation who began utilizing social networking sites like Facebook to grieve a deceased loved one. \nJust 19 days after Temple University students began remembering Dana Burke on her Facebook wall, the students at Virginia Tech University started doing the same. A shooting at the school on April 16 left 32 dead. Maxine Turner was one of them. \nTina Diranian, 22, a recent graduate from George Mason University, was working on the day of the shootings. A news alert came across her e-mail reporting a shooting at Virginia Tech. Her mind immediately jumped to Turner, her close friend since kindergarten and a Virginia Tech student. Diranian took off work to go home. After watching the TV for almost 20 hours, Diranian received confirmation that Turner was in the German classroom and did not survive. \nOn April 17, Diranian created a memorial group for Turner on Facebook. Diranian is close with Turner’s parents and spent a lot of her childhood in their house.\n“I wanted to be the one to support them. It helped her parents in the coming days,” Diranian said. “We could all support each other this way. We were all scattered around the country, but this was a way we could be together.” \nDr. Sara Corse, a grief counselor at Philadelphia’s Council for Relationships, said the live nature of the Internet and new media like Facebook provide healthy avenues for people to grieve. \n“What the Internet does for people is it allows, at any time or place that suits the person’s emotional schedule, access to information and other people’s feelings about something,” Corse said. “It’s a way people can move out of social isolation.” \nCorse said someone grieving might not be able to move past the fact that a loved one is gone, but that the idea of a Facebook page can help curb that obstacle. \n“Facebook is organic,” Corse said. “It’s alive; it’s not dead.”