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A section about my inspirations for making this memorial site.


Since I began building Tori's memorial page in February 2004, I've had a lot of people ask me why. It's true, I didn't know Tori well... so why did I want to take the time to make this page? Well, there are a lot of answers to that question. Perhaps it's not something that everyone would understand, but I'd like to think that Tori would.

On January 28th, 2002, an online friend of Joey's (Joey is an online friend of mine; and real life friend of Tori's) was hit by a car on his way to school. His name was Allen "A.J." DeVol (there is a link to the article about this here). I'd never talked to him, but I had heard his name mentioned a few times. He was someone I knew about, but someone I never really knew. Even still, it was upsetting. He was only 15. A part of me regretted never getting to know him before he died.

Even though I hadn't known him, I had thought about his death over the past several years. It's sad... such a waste of life. He was so young and full of life... and it was the first time I'd ever been faced with the death of a young person before. It's touching (and sad, of course) to see how much he is missed and loved by all who knew him.

A few months after Tori died, close to the two year mark of Allen's death, I found a message Tori had written about (to) A.J. It read:

I had to comment. I didn't know you. I knew some of your friends, and we were all in a chat together a few times. I believe you even imed me a few times... a long time ago. You seemed like a nice guy and were fun to talk to those few times. Now I see how much you meant to everyone and I wish I had known you. It's an awful thing, you were so young. It just makes me think, about life and how fast any of us could just be gone. Even though I never knew you, I am saddened after reading everyone's comments. So just rest in peace, Phage of Society. And don't forget to look down on your friends from time to time, I think they need you.

It was strange. It reminded me so much of how I felt following Tori's death. The words she wrote about Allen there say a lot about her, I think. Somehow, after reading that, I knew she would understand my reasons for wanting to honor her life. And so I felt this was something I had to do.

Tori was able to show me a lot of things. I thank her for that, and this is my way of honoring her for it. It's the least I could do.