From the ashes of tragedy comes a new family history app

No one imagines the journey that takes place after hearing the dreaded words “You have stage four cancer”. It’s a journey I wouldn’t wish on anyone but it happens all too often. One Sunday morning my wife, Kimberly, came into the living room complaining that she twisted her neck and couldn’t turn her head. After the usual hot shower and home remedies didn’t work, we decided to go to a local Urgent Care center to get it looked at. While speaking with the doctor, I asked if they could also take an xray of her chest since I noticed she had a very mild, but persistent, cough for the past few weeks that just seemed to linger on. He agreed, Kim gave me a smile, and they went off into the radiology department. Afterwards, we waited in an exam room for quite a while until the doctor came back in, this time with an assistant. He said it looked like she pulled something in her neck but there was something more concerning found on the lung xray. He insisted that we have a CT scan the next morning at their main medical facility and had already scheduled it for 8am. This was the beginning of a whirlwind of events that would turn everything we knew upside down and change all of our family’s lives forever.

The CT scan came back showing stage four lung cancer that had metastasized to both lungs. It was a surreal conversation that came out of nowhere. How could this be possible? Kim was a non smoker, health conscious young woman who did everything right. She was the one who tried to get our two young children and I to eat healthier and take care of ourselves, despite our constant resistance to her attempts. Now here we were, plunged into a world of disorientation, disbelief, and utter panic. We had to keep as calm as possible for the sake of our children, who were barely old enough to understand the levity of what was happening. For the next few days, an endless number of phone calls were made and doctor appointments scheduled back to back. The unwanted journey was fully underway.

For the next two years, life was anything but normal. Weekly exams, tests, and physician consults were piled on with regular Chemotherapy treatments, special diets, alternative treatments, and anything else we could possibly think of that would keep Kim alive. There was a time that things were looking good and we saw reduction in the disease. Unfortunately, cancer is like trying to hold jello in your hand. It often changes and adapts to treatments, finding a new way to grow. After a year and a half, the cancer started coming back and treatments were changed to combat the disease from different perspectives. This went on for another ten months but the disease had grown too strong and we lost the battle in November of 2017. Kim was gone. I now found myself a single dad of 2 children, a girl and a boy. This was not part of the plan but it was definitely the reality.

Throughout the first year of our new life, I frequently thought about Kim and our children. How would I keep her memory alive so that one day, our grandchildren, would know about the wonderful, spirited woman that was their grandmother. Sure, I could hopefully tell them a few stories, and we have photo albums and some home videos, but younger generations have no real interest in looking through these traditional methods anymore. Besides, how much do you truly learn about a person from photos? I wished there was a way for my grandchildren to see the true personality and essence of their grandmother as I knew her. To see her, hear her, and know her in an intimate and personal way.

The only way to truly learn about someone is to meet them, talk to them, ask them about themselves and experience them face to face. I knew this was not possible for my grandchildren and Kim but I made it a mission to create a new way that future generations would be able to experience the amazing people that make up their family and came before them, in that personal way. Using technologies like voice recognition and artificial intelligence, with the fact that the world now lives on their handheld devices, I imagined a face to face virtual conversation experience that could become a new way of passing on the life experiences, knowledge, and story of a loved one beyond any photo album, diary, and home video . . . all in the palm of your hand. So I built a new mobile app called ‘whoowe’ (who-o-we).

Whoowe gives you questions about yourself that you answer in short selfie videos and the software does the rest. Family, friends, and future generations can open your “Living Profile” and ask you questions, triggering your answers as if on a face to face video call conversation. Users get to see you in a real time intimate way. They can learn things about you that no traditional method can teach them and truly get to know you as the special unique person you are, today, and far into the future. The app gives younger generations an engaging and entertaining way to in