A cYber memorial

Published 4:00 am Monday, February 21, 2005

When 22-year-old Pete Tripp died in an avalanche last month in the Idaho backcountry, he left a trail of loved ones around the globe reeling from the death of a young man who had left them too soon.

Pete died alongside a friend and fellow Gonzaga University student, Brian Brett, 24, of Bellingham, Wash., when they were caught in an avalanche while snowboarding in a remote area in northern Idaho.

In the wake of his death, Pete’s parents, who live in Bend, his family and his friends have found solace in a Web site his sister, Alli Tripp-Russo, created that is part memorial, part grief circle.

Filled with photographs and memories of Pete from childhood to manhood, the Web site weaves a tapestry of a life that embodied adventure and inspired by example.

It has become a place where people have shared memories, offered condolences and sought comfort.

As a gathering point for far-flung loved ones, the Web site has also become a legacy to a budding philosopher who championed the idea of community.

Tripp-Russo, who lives in Minnesota, said the idea for the Web site came after Brett’s family put together an online memorial for him. They had suggested it to her older brother, Todd.

”We thought this was a great way for all the people that Pete loved and cared about to be together,” Tripp-Russo said. ”What was really important to him is that everyone is part of a community. He believed that we could change the world for the better by our individual commitments.”

Through the Web site, Tripp-Russo honors a brother who taught her the power of contributing to the world, even though he was 10 years younger and lived thousands of miles away. She wants to start a nonprofit in Pete’s name and donate money to youth and educational organizations – causes that Pete worked on and believed in.

”Even though he’s not here, he still inspires me to do something,” Tripp-Russo said.

Pete gave 100 percent to everything, said his sister, whether it was requesting a copy of Malcolm X’s biography as his first grown-up book when he was 8, or bringing an exacting eye to building skateboard ramps.

On the Web site, family members speak of a shy boy from Eugene who grew into a modest young man with a lust for life and a love of the outdoors. Pete had grown up on the slopes of Mount Bachelor before his parents moved to Bend. Skiing took Pete to the mountains he loved, but it was just one sport among many that kept him moving in nature.

”My sweet, shy nephew had become a thoughtful, articulate, intelligent young man, filled with conviction and optimism and hope,” wrote Pete’s aunt, Christy. ”How amazing that this beautiful boy, with his beautiful smile, who had such a breadth of experience also acquired such depth of spirit and mind and soul.”

Friends remember a renaissance man who embraced the world through ideals and had a growing faith in God.

He studied hard, graduating magna cum laude from Gonzaga University, a small, private college in Spokane, with a double major in chemistry and philosophy last year. He went on to pursue a master’s degree in philosophy at the college last fall.

But in his downtime, Pete could be known to break dance or spin records, often listening to reggae and hip hop music.

Acquaintances talk of a person who left an impression whether they met him for five minutes or knew him for five years.

”He always made me laugh when I was in a bad mood or upset about anything. I will never forget his smile or his laugh,” wrote Jessica Anderson, who knew Pete as mentor for middle school students.

They all remember a person with a ready smile, an infectious spirit and wisdom beyond his years. A man who, as a former roommate described, ”was like a green light, always on the go, enjoying every minute.”

That passion for life inspired those around Pete, like Chris Smith, a ninth-grader at Rogers High School in Spokane, who Pete mentored for two years in the Shaw Connection program at Shaw Middle School. They continued to hang out even after Chris went on to high school.

Before meeting Pete, Chris struggled in school. Two years under Pete’s wing, and Chris was on the honor roll.

”I was sad all the time. He really brought me out of that,” Smith said. ”He had an aura about him that just brightened up everyone’s day.”

But as much as the Web site is a testament to Pete’s life, it has also become a place of to grieve his death.

His mom, Freya, wrote about the struggle to find peace with the loss of her youngest child.

”My life, without the prospect of Pete coming home, is devastating. I loved that guy!” Freya Tripp wrote. ”My thanks to all you who have shared your knowing of Pete with me. I’m truly touched by all the ways he blessed us. My determination to go on, like Pete would want, has grown from your sharing.”

Through the Web site, Freya and her husband, Dr. Michael Tripp, a gastroenterologist at Bend Memorial Clinic, have seen Pete through other people’s eyes.

”He always made Freya and I feel good and we just loved to do things with him,” Michael Tripp said in a telephone interview. ”We realized that he really did that for other people too.”

From Pete’s online memorial, Michael Tripp sees a son who is almost too good to be true.

But as Pete grew up, there were inklings that he would live a life of principle.

As an adolescent, he decided to become vegetarian. In college, he sought out religion even though his parents weren’t practicing Catholics, Michael Tripp said. And after traveling to Papa New Guinea after his freshman year, he looked at the world with a new acceptance and understanding.

”He felt guilty about living a privileged life. He wanted to do more to help people,” he said. ”He followed up and did it. He walked the talk.”

Though he visits Pete’s Web site regularly, Michael Tripp hasn’t been able to bring himself to share his own feelings.

Even so, the outpouring of love and support on the Web site has become a bright spot in dark times.

”It provided a way to communicate and support each other,” he said. ”It sort of restores your faith in humanity of how communities can work together.”

And while Pete lives on through memories shared on his online memorial, his own words may help loved ones come to terms with his death.

”Sometimes the products of the experience are more important than the experience themselves,” Pete wrote in an e-mail to a friend that is posted on the Web site. ”It’s a perfect metaphor for relationships. The time you spend with someone is a facility for the love that develops between you. The love is what is important, not the time.”

Ernestine Bousquet can be reached at 541-504-2336 or at ebousquet@bendbulletin.com.