Darren Hauck for The New York Times  After his mother died, Paul Cebar ofÂ Milwaukee, Wisc., began to scan and post photos to Facebook from an album that had belonged to her to honor her memory.  MILWAUKEE — In the days after his mother, Dorothy, died last month, Paul Cebar went sorting through the keepsakes she had accumulated in 83 years of life. He had in mind a particular memento, one he dimly remembered from childhood, a slide viewer with a set of 3-D photos of her wedding, back in 1955.  The quest for it led Mr. Cebar through the sedimentary layers of family history in Dorothy’s home here — a pair of gloves she had knitted, a prize ribbon from the state fair for one of her desserts, a mosaic she made from plant seeds, some of the small toys she often gave to neighbors’ children. Then, instead of discovering the wedding pictures, Mr. Cebar came upon a scrapbook with a wooden cover, labeled in cursive script, “Snap Shots.”  Dorothy Cebar received a Roman Catholic funeral, in keeping with her faith. And Paul Cebar, though he had not been a practicing Catholic for many years, followed the liturgy with a familiarity that soothed him. Yet the ceremony also left him yearning for something more ineffable, some spiritual communion with his mother, some continuing conversation between the mourner and the mourned.  When he found the photographs of his mother, it turns out, Mr. Cebar also found the answer to that quest. From those pictures, he has created an online memorial on his Facebook page. There in cyberspace, Mr. Cebar has found solace and community, the equivalent of a formal religious ritual, like a wake or shiva or a memorial service.  “I’d been in a fog, trying to figure out how to process her death,” said Mr. Cebar, 55. “I knew it had some meaning to me. I thought these photos could in some way stand on their own. And then you hear from all these people in your life. Some are earnest. Some are playful. It was a comfort.”  The custom that Mr. Cebar almost stumbled into is being more widely practiced, and not just when fans of a superstar like Whitney Houston post their tributes and heartaches on social media sites. These sites provide a longevity and global reach for noncelebrities that no memorial book, no poster board of snapshots, no eulogy, however eloquent, can possibly equal. In an era when religious practice is often rooted in personal acts of spirituality rather than in fixed, denominational rites, Facebook can host a new kind of congregation.  “When someone dies, you want everyone to know this life so that he or she did not live in vain,” said Denise Carson, author of “Parting Ways,” a book about innovative end-of-life rituals.  “Our fear of this person fading from our memory triggers a life review of all the moments shared together,” she continued. “Memories of the deceased dump from our subconscious into our conscious mind. It can be overwhelming. Social media gives us a platform to organize our reflections. Now we have a stage online to transmit these life stories. And we have a place that allows us to share and connect with others in our hour of grief.”  In many ways, Mr. Cebar had enjoyed an enviable closeness with his mother throughout her life. She had heen his Cub Scout den leader, his companion watching “The Tonight Show,” a confidante about his romantic misadventures, and an ardent follower of the various bands he has led in a 30-year musical career.  Yet some of their very affinities hinted at what he did not know about her. When he first heard a record by the 1940s R & B star Louis Jordan, a revelation that shifted his own musical direction away from the folk-rock of Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Mr. Cebar was stunned when Dorothy matter-of-factly mentioned that she had listened to Jordan often at a Milwaukee club called Lakota’s. Same thing when Mr. Cebar fell in love with Panama suits and saddle shoes from a parish thrift store: his mother knew all about that style.  The wooden book of snapshots in the family basement finally filled in the missing terrain, the landscape of Dorothy’s own youth. Born to a foundry worker, raised in a working-class neighborhood here indelicately called Pigsville, she had willed herself to college and a career in education. And from early on, she had been such a spitfire with her red hair and glossy lips that friends, using Dorothy’s maiden name, called her Chilli Con Karner.  The memorial endeavor started more by instinct than intention. Just before noon on Jan. 23, Mr. Cebar digitally scanned a photograph of his mother from the album and then posted it on Facebook. Until then, he had used Facebook only intermittently, and primarily to promote shows by his current band, Tomorrow Sound.  That first snapshot captured Dorothy in her late teens or early 20s, wearing saddle shoes and bobby socks, knee coquettishly bent, head tilted back in a Betty Grable way. “There’s just so much attitude,” Mr. Cebar said. “So much enthusiasm.”  To Mr. Cebar’s surprise, friends, relatives and acquaintances soon began posting replies. “You can tell she was a pistol,” wrote one.  So Mr. Cebar scanned and uploaded another photo, this one a portrait of his mother, probably during college, with her own handwritten joke about having a flea in her hair. He followed it with two or three photos almost every day — Dorothy tap-dancing with her sister, toasting with her brother-in-law at a New Year’s Eve party, sunbathing on the Lake Michigan beach, shopping downtown with Paul and his sister, Mary.  The responses multiplied, reaching well into the hundreds. They came from Seattle and Kentucky and Australia. They came from his college roommate, a drummer’s former girlfriend, a former neighbor now retired and living out of state.  “Oh Paul,” wrote the sister of Tomorrow Sound’s percussionist. “Her life in pictures. You couldn’t have asked for more. You got to know her before she knew you.”
A Milwaukee man who yearned for a spiritual connection after his mother died found it by posting photographs from her scrapbook on Facebook, prompting replies from all over the world.