At Grandma's 80th birthday, somebody gets a video of her blowing out the candles. A few seats down, somebody else catches her laughing before the cake even comes out. Ask her what started it, and she'll tell you about the year your uncle tried to bake her a cake and forgot to put the sugar in.
Years later, that laugh might be the part you play twice.
I spent years as a hospital orderly. People told me about new babies, trips they'd waited a lifetime to take, and loved ones they missed. What stayed with me was how often a little detail carried the whole story. You'd hear somebody describe a person's laugh and find yourself smiling, even though you'd never met them.
I know how easy it is to lose track of those details. My own memory has taught me that much. I might remember who was there and still forget what somebody said that had the whole room laughing.
And even when we do capture it, everybody goes home with a different piece. Your sister has the video of the candles. Your cousin has the clip of Grandma laughing. You have her telling the story about the cake. On their own, they're three clips on three phones. Put them together and you can see how one moment led to the next.
That's why I built LifeScape. One person can start a story and invite the people who were there to add their photos, videos and voices. Together, those pieces become a 90-second family documentary we call a Momentary. No filming skills. No editing. Free to start. And your family decides who gets to see it.
Think about the stories you grew up hearing at the kitchen table. You probably knew how some of them ended before anyone got halfway through. You listened anyway. Sometimes you wanted to hear how your mother told it. Sometimes somebody at the table remembered a part you'd never heard.
I want our kids to have that same chance. Years from now, they can pull up Grandma's birthday and hear her tell the cake story herself. And the next time everybody gets together, somebody can ask your uncle if he ever learned to bake.
Ken Lawrence