CHINA -- Amanda "Mandy" Edwards loved to laugh.

She enjoyed cheerleading -- even with a broken finger. She was obsessed with American Eagle clothes, ate ravenously but never seemed to gain weight, campaigned for increased breast-cancer awareness and endeared herself to her classmates at Erskine Academy.

Hundreds of friends and family members gathered on Wednesday to mingle tears with laughter as they remembered the 17-year-old honor student who died in a car accident on Saturday. Many of them told funny stories about her antics or more serious ones about her value as a friend.

"There are three generations here today," Edwards' grandfather, Norm Renaud, said. "We all share the same unrelenting grief, and we all shed the same tears."

Fellow Erskine senior Gage Patton recalled how Edwards had persuaded him to overcome his shyness and sing in the church choir by standing beside him and holding his hand.

Many in the crowd cried along with him as he stepped aside and more classmates and acquaintances relayed their experiences.

As many as 100 people lined up to leave roses with the open casket before heading out of the auditorium at China Lake Conference Center, filing past murals with handwritten notes to Edwards from her classmates. Knots of quietly sobbing students formed and dissolved as they found different ways to express their grief.

One student said she was preparing a MySpace memorial page for Edwards. Another created a video collage of moments in Edwards' life and placed in on YouTube.com, viewable at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXMZ_H0bwFU.

The librarian at the school, Evelyn Emerson, said Edwards had recently become fascinated with a book called "Twilight," the first of a four-part series about an ordinary girl who falls in love with a vampire. Edwards returned time and again to the library to try to check it out, but it was so popular she could never find it on the shelf.

At last, on Friday, her persistence persuaded the librarian to hold it for her, despite a general policy of first-come, first-served. But Saturday's car accident came before Edwards could pick it up.

Emerson felt it would be fitting to purchase a copy to give to the family.

"I know she was excited," Emerson said. "She just wanted to get ahold of it like all the other kids.

"I'm not sure if the family will want to hang onto it, or if they'll want to leave it with her in the casket."

The grandfather, Renaud, said the best Edwards' loved ones could do is remember her as she had lived.

"Our dearest, beautiful Mandy: We don't know why (she died). But we know who you are," he said.

Faith may not answer all of the questions, but it can provide peace in the face of such tragedy, said Windsor Memorial Baptist Church's pastor, Greg McKelvey. Edwards was a member of Windsor Memorial Baptist Church and a Christian, McKelvey said.

"We come together as a community, and we're looking for answers, but there are none," the pastor said. "... But if there's anything I'm sure of today, that is that when she opened up her eyes after that accident, she found herself in the presence of the Lord."

Joel Elliott -- 861-9252

jelliott@centralmaine.com