Mildred "Mid" Carlson, an elderly woman, remembers a polite young man who cut her lawn.

R. J. Bergstrom, husband, father and working man, remembers his son Dan's best friend whom, he said, he loved like his own son.

In the two days -- just 48 hours -- between the death and funeral, the victim's family received more than 300 sympathy cards and letters.

The memories are multiplying also.

Deborah Iverson, mother of close friend Justin Peterson, loved it when he called her "Mom" and showed up accidentally-on-purpose at suppertime.

Former Neveln Elementary School teacher Diana Wangsness wrote about the little boy she knew 15 years earlier. Pat Kearney, a high school teacher, was also moved to write his parents.

Emily Shaw remembers a brother and Ben Miller remembers a cousin.

Justin Peterson remembers a friend.

And they are only three.

Co-workers at Austin County Club remember a one-of-a-kind employee and will plant a tree in his honor.

Ten people touched by the young man gathered this week to talk about someone dear to them.

Danielle Nicol and Adam Johnson, cousins; Sean Mortensen, Jessica Krulish, Vernon Neitzell, all friends, and Isaac Neitzell, roommate and friend.

Darren Douglas Shaw died a week ago at the age of 25.

Carlson hired the young man to cut her southwest Austin lawn last summer. "Oh, heavens!" she said, "You couldn't ask for anyone better."

R. J. Bergstrom went for a walk in farm fields after learning of the young man's death. Then he wrote his thoughts on paper.

Bergstrom's son, Dan, gave a eulogy at his friend's funeral. He addressed his words to his friend: "Darren, I know you are with us right now, standing over us smiling. We will never forget you and what you meant to all of us."

On March 7, the young man died in a traffic accident two blocks from where he lived.

He was pursued by an Austin police officer, who noticed a faulty tail light on his SUV. Shaw had recently left a rock concert at Torge's Live at the Holiday Inn Conference Center.

The pursuit lasted 60 seconds, according to an Austin Police Department report.

The young man's SUV crashed into a tree on a city boulevard and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Preliminary autopsy results have not been released by authorities although they were turned over to local police Thursday.

When 10 of the deceased's relatives and friends gathered to talk about the young man after the funeral, there was not a single discouraging wor said about the young man.

"I met Darren in high school," said Peterson. "Darren was in ninth grade and I was in 10th grade. It all started when we asked him to go out to lunch with us. From that point on our friendship grew."

Nicol, a cousin, remembered how the young man enjoyed little children, particularly her severely handicapped niece.

Emily Shaw said her brother earned the nickname "Protector" for looking after the youngest family members.

Nicol also remembered how Darren Shaw used to walk her home from school despite being teased by other Neveln Elementary School boys.

The night of the accident, the group of friends were getting together for the first time in a long time. Darren did much of the calling to bring everyone together.

Miller's first reaction to the news his cousin had died was, "He wasn't dead."

Mortensen called Isaac Neitzell, their friend's roommate, and he didn't know anything about the accident and then Mortensen called Peterson and he didn't know anything about the tragedy either. Lastly, he called Dan Bergstrom.

The friends "heard something had happened," as Isaac Neitzell recalled, but authorities did not contact the roommate.

Soon that Friday, it became news and the speed of the tragedy becoming a newspaper, radio and television item bothers the group.

"You have to understand the pain that caused our family," said Emily Shaw. "I think we all felt that our hearts and stomachs just got ripped right out of us. It's the most numbing kind of feeling."

"He was the guy that everyone liked," Mortensen said. "He didn't have an enemy in the world.

"I think he had more friends than he realized.

To make his point, Mortensen has a two-page, single-spaced, typewritten statement expressing his affection for his friend.

The young relatives and friends plan to get together at some future date to celebrate the life of their friend and mourn his death.

Dennis and Marsha Shaw, parents of the deceased, their daughter, Emily, and grandparents, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins will do the same.

Ten friends and relatives are only the tip of the iceberg of attention given Darren Douglas Shaw.

E-mails continue. One of them is from Shawn Seavey, a friend of the deceased for the last two and a half years.

"This is the hardest thing I have ever had to deal with and I hope everyone understands that everyone grieves differently," she said.

"Darren was always there for me and no one will ever be able to take his place," she continued. "A large part of me died that night along with him.

"And if I could trade places with him I certainly would."

It's been only a week. Still too much to comprehend for his loved ones, too soon to look beyond the awful event in the early morning hours of March 7.

The friends and relatives have brought pictures with them. They show a young man smiling at the camera. He is in a field with his best friend after a successful pheasant hunt. He is in a backyard swimming pool horsing around with buddies. He is in a boat on a lake holding a fish he caught.

"Before I got up there," said Dan Bergstrom, best friend and eulogist at the funeral, "I didn't even know if I could do it."

"Once I got up there and looked down at the casket it was like Darren was with me," Bergstrom said.

Lee Bonorden can be contacted at 434-2232 or by e-mail at :mailto:lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com