In Memory Of...

Like all good drivers, Bridget Bayliss routinely looks into her rearview mirror to check who's behind her.
But no matter her location or speed, the Clementon resident already knows who's riding just inches off her rear bumper: her mother, Janine Cara Bayliss, who passed away from cervical cancer 20 years ago at the age of 35.
Last year, 19 years after Cara Bayliss' body was buried, her memory was resurrected through a growing trend: a memorial car decal.
While tailgaters may look at the decal and read the ``In Loving Memory of Janine Cara'' inscription, Bayliss sees something else.
``I see her face and I see her smile,'' Bayliss, 37, said. ``And that reminds me of her. She always had a smile on her face.''
Bayliss is not alone.
While death may be final, many folks are finding innovative ways to commemorate their loved ones by etching - and stretching - one's memory across their car, shirt or skin.

My Mother the Car
To a stranger, the epitaph may be considered morbid, a mobile reminder of mortality, but to Bayliss, it's the stuff of bedtime stories.
A mother of three, Bayliss said the sign sparks her children's wonder about the grandmother they never knew.
Bayliss tells them of her mother's constant laugh, her unshakable love for her and her sister, Kara, and her struggle to raise the two of them as a stay-at-home mom. They want more.
``They know her just as Grandma, but she was a real person. And I like to keep her memory alive,'' said Bayliss, a state worker. ``I don't want to bury it.''
Bayliss bought the customized decal at Mr. Auto/Tire at the Berlin Farmer's Market for $20 last year, applied it to the outer back window of her 1997 Dodge Caravan, dampened the backing and peeled it off to reveal the memorial.
She hopes people read in to it.
``It's a reminder of who she was and I wouldn't be the person I am today with out her,'' Bayliss said. ``I just want to share with the world how great of a person she was. My kids missed out.''
Lucy Bregman, a religion professor at Temple University who teaches the course ``Death and Dying,'' said the need for such pub lic exercises of grief is nor mal and as old as the color black.
Before the end of World War I, bereaved Americans would wear black clothes, arm bands or special hair styles often for longer than a year to show others they were still suffering.
``It was something like a uniform. Think of professions and jobs,'' Bregman said. ``It's to let the world know this is who I am, treat me in a certain way.''

Threads of Love
Not every automobile is reared with remembrance.
Najeeb Green-Lewis was riding his electric scooter last May when a fellow Winslow Township resident, driving a rental car with a suspended license, a previous DWI conviction and a blood-alcohol level of .20, struck and killed the 12 year old.
As his guardian grandmother, Monica Durell could have languished in despair, but instead has taken up the mightly task of living for Najeeb.
Months after the former football and basketball player made his last pass posthumously by donating his heart, liver and kidneys to four grateful recipients, Durell has picked up where he left off.
Durell drafted a bill, the proposed ``Najeeb Green-Lewis Law,'' that would force car rental agencies to confirm a driver's legal status before releasing a vehicle.
``I'm trying to make [his death] positive and to save a life,'' said Durell, also of Winslow. ``If that law is passed, you don't know how many lives you can save.
``It's amazing to see a 12 year old have such an impact on people.''
Durell has also set up a couple foundations in his name: a $500 scholarship open to area high-school seniors who were raised by their grandparents, and a sports fund eligible to youth athletes of Winslow.
To raise the funds, Durell will sell T-shirts of Najeeb's image that read ``You will be missed But not for gotten!'' at a commemorative basketball tournament on May 24. First, however, she needed to find a T-shirt printer that could meet her specifications.
``I wanted [the photo] in color. I did't want it black and white, or ironed on because it would crack,'' she said. ``I wanted it to last.''
Karl Baker has handled such orders before.
The owner of GTM Signs, a printing press in Deptford that specializes in custom signs and apparel, said even though he receives requests like Durell's monthly, each job is unique.
``We care,'' Baker, 56, said. ``We've all had pain.''

Rest in Pieces
Baker lost his older sister, Jaine, to brain cancer four years ago. Her memory remains grounded in him, her remains, though, scattered.
With cremations becoming increasingly more common in America, public tributes have grown even more fleeting, often ending with the funeral procession's caboose or yesterday's obituary.
Professor Bayliss said the longer the dead - particularly those who die young - rest outside of society's consciousness, the more restless some of the living become.
``There's a lot more cremations and the graves are tucked off in the cemetery. ...,'' she said. ``It's important to claim that they are remembered. It's important to carry some symbolic thing to remember them with.''
According to the latest survey by the Cremation Association of North America, 32.3 percent of the American deceased were cremated in 2005, up from 27 percent in 2001.
During that period, New Jersey cremations rose from 23.9 to 27.6 percent.
Unlike most who are cremated, Najeeb was entombed in a mausoluem. Durell can't bring herself to visit, though; not when it only causes her to revisit May 3.
``Who would want to visit their kids like that, to be honest?'' Durell said. ``This is the last way we would want to think of him, not being here. He had his whole life in front of him.''

Lasting Impressions
Four years ago when Spanky's Tattoo Studio opened in Camden, like thunder to lightning, tattoo artist Spanky needed only to hear gunfire - or word of it - to know business wasn't far behind.
The heavy hearted would file in, pull up their sleeve, bite down and leave with the most traditional tat: R.I.P., name of the fallen and birth-death timeline.
``It seemed like we were the stop between the church, which is four doors down, and the after funeral gathering,'' said Spanky, the husband of owner Aileen Metzger. ``It'd be the funeral, the tattoo, I guess they'd pick up their shirts and that was sort of how it was.
``And then in the last year and a half it's really started to change.''
Commemorative tattoos continue to be the Levittown, Pa. couple's ``bread
and butter,'' but nowadays people give the design a bit more thought, said Spanky, 50. The ``R.I.P.'' has given way to portraits and personal symbols for loved ones.
No names are mentioned, no reminders of death given.
``The whole feeling of finality goes away in terms of seeing their name and [that] they died as opposed to us ing that far more euphemis tic type of wording like 'Sunrise' and 'Sunset,''' Spanky said.
For most of his 27 years drilling tattoos, back when tats were considered signs of rebellion, not accessories, Spanky's clientele consisted mainly of ``hooligans, ruffi ans and bikers.''
Like many of its wearers, a certain memorial tattoo also caught the eye of the law.
Before being outlawed, a teardrop tattoo, worn within a too-close inch of the eye, signified when someone, often a gangmember, lost a loved one or killed a rival, Metzger said.
Having inked memorials on hundreds of patrons since then, Spanky knows how the tats trend; they're common on the upper bicep and shoulder areas, among first timers and for all ages 18 and older.
But despite fitting the profile, even Sparky was surprised when a 75-year-old woman came into the Camden parlor nine months ago. She was too.
``She sat there and she swore she never thought she would get a tattoo in her life,'' he said.
She lost her vow after she lost her son. Unsure how to pay her son tribute, the woman consulted with Spanky and proceeded to remember his love for basketball and tattoos.
Spanky drew up a basketball player going up for a dunk with heaven bursting outside the rim, a design that adorns her right arm today.
During the process, she spoke about the tattoo hurting the least. This didn't surprise Spanky.
``Almost always the people end up crying and it's not about the tattoo,'' he said. ``We'll be talking about it and they start to relive everything. They'll be all happy and say it's something they really wanted. And then they'll look at it and it all kind of comes back and hits them again.
``They'll say the least I can do is this little bit of pain to remember them.''