Since the death last month of Eric “Freddy” Frederick, a 19-year-old Scarborough resident, his friends having been running around painting the town red – and green and gold.

Frederick, a fan of reggae musician Bob Marley, frequently wore wristbands with the colors favored by the singer. Now, his friends and family are memorializing him by putting up signs, spray-painting rocks and getting tattoos with his nickname or his initials – all ways of expressing their love and their grief.

“There are good days and bad days,” said Frederick’s stepfather, Paul Coons. “There’s still some shock.”

Frederick died in the hospital on July 11 after being injured in a car accident the day before. Within the same week, three other Scarborough residents were killed – two in car accidents and another in a drowning – leaving much of the town grief stricken.

At a town council meeting on July 18, Councilor Sylvia Most noted how, despite Scarborough’s growing population, the reaction of the residents to the sudden string of deaths made her realize, in some ways, it’s still a very small town.

“It doesn’t seem like there was anyone that wasn’t affected on some level or another,” Most said Tuesday.

Most, herself, was the neighbor of Justin Butts, the 34-year-old man who drowned July 14 after having a seizure in a kayak at his family’s camp in Denmark. She said she doesn’t often see her neighbors, but when the tragedy struck, everyone quickly made contact to let each other know what happened.

“People were really concerned,” said Most, whose neighbors will be planting a tree in Memorial Park in memory of Butts.

At the council meeting, Town Manager Ron Owens said it was a solemn week in the municipal building, where many people were connected to those who had died.

Kevin Gelinas, 37, who died in a car accident on Broadturn Road on July 10, was the son of Becky Silver, an EMT in town on duty at the time of the accident and called to the scene.

Another victim of a fatal crash, Brittany Burke, a 14-year-old girl in foster care in Scarborough, was attending a camp sponsored by Scarborough Community Services. According to Raelene Bodman, recreation and child care manager for community services, last week campers dedicated a slideshow of photos from the summer to Burke.

“It was quite intense here for a couple days,” Bodman said about the week Burke was killed. “I think it was hard for them even if they weren’t friends with Brittany.”

Donna Towle, a grief counselor in Portland, said while everyone grieves differently, everyone still goes through the same process, no matter how long it takes each person.

“It’s an individual experience,” she said, but there’s one thing everyone must do. “The important thing is to face it and to understand what’s happening to you. You’re not going crazy, you’re grieving.”

Towle said the grieving process is no time to be strong or to hide behind a facade.

“A lot of people don’t know how to express it. They think they should be brave and cover it up,” she said. “Many people do not want to face that hurt.”

According to Towle, that is often an issue with teenagers, who are at particular risk for developing behavioral problems if left with unresolved grief. Fortunately, Frederick’s friends seem to be confronting the loss head-on.

“It hit me right away that I would never hang out with Freddy again,” said his friend, Justin Zinck. Though Zinck said it took longer for Frederick’s death to sink in for some of his other friends, they have been supportive of each other.

“Everyone’s really come together,” Zinck said. “Everyone’s grown up a lot.”

Zinck said his friends have become less hesitant to help each other out with a ride and or to say what’s on their minds.

To “enjoy the moments you have and not let things go unsaid” are two lessons Zinck said he has taken away from the experience.

“You realize everything can change, just like that,” he said.

Zinck and Frederick’s stepsister, Sarah Coons, both people who thought they would never get tattoos, each got one with Frederick’s initials – Zinck on his shoulder and Coons on the back of her neck. Coons said she can think of at least 15 people who have done the same, including several of Frederick’s co-workers from the Clambake, who had white “E”s inked on their wrists.

Coons also put up signs at the high school, where Frederick graduated from in 2006, and flag on a fence near his grave in Calvary Cemetery. A large, white cross is attached with his name to a tree at the site of the accident, and “Freddy” is painted in giant green and white letters along a highway exit in Portland.

Though they have spread his name through signs and spray paint, Coons and Zinck said, mostly, friends remember him by continuing to talk about their memories of Frederick – on the phone, in person and over the Internet.

“There are so many stories about Freddy,” Zinck said. “That’s what we share.”

Linda Kelly, program director at The Center for Grieving Children in Portland, said young adults often turn to their friends for support rather than their families when they experience the loss of a peer.

“That’s a very natural thing to do,” Kelly said. “It’s a complicated time of life to grieve.”

Kitty Ellyson, a Portland mental-health counselor who specializes in adolescents, said most people that age haven’t experienced a real loss – let alone having to deal with the death of someone their own age.

“You take everything so seriously and so personally. It hurts worse. There’s not a whole lot of experience or coping skills,” she said. Ellyson said, whether it’s a friend or a family member, it’s important for young adults to have someone they can talk about their grief with over and over again.

“It can keep coming back in so many different ways,” she said.

Though Frederick’s cell phone is missing, Coons said she called it last month and his voice mailbox was full. The messages were automatically erased two weeks later, but new ones had been left when she called it again recently. Coons said she left one herself.

“You can still hear, ‘Yo, it’s Freddy,'” she said about calling his phone.

Frederick’s mother, Debra Coons, said she still talks to her son all the time.

“I’ve had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that he could die,” Coons said. “I feel very connected to him still.”

Coons said the experience still feels surreal, and she is still in the early stages of the grieving process. Though she said she can see that many friends and family members of her son have moved forward with their grief, as long as she still has their support, she won’t feel alone.

Sarah Coons said five nights in a row after her stepbrother died, she had a dream where he would come and hug her then go away. When the dreams stopped, she felt as if she’d moved forward with her grieving process, and when others are ready, she believes he will visit them, too.

“He gave me my five nights, and now he’s onto someone else,” she said. “He’s got all these people to look over.”