The Story of Their Life

November 29, 2020 8:37 PM

Looking for a site to collect memories and photos of a loved one in critical condition

Two days ago a member of my extended family suddenly collapsed from a brain bleed. Their prognosis is not good. While their parents/spouse/siblings are dealing with the unfolding situation, some of us who are not direct family are trying to help logistically.

I have been tasked with trying to find a means to collect stories/memories/photos, probably with a site (especially in these pandemic times). Should the worst happen, the family member would be leaving behind a young spouse and two very young children (toddlers). The doctors have been honest and things are not optimistic. Having been through the passing of another loved one before, I know the outpouring of stories and love when people come together to remember someone. We would like to be able to record that or make it easy for people to share, so we can hopefully keep it as a way for the kids to know/remember their parent as they grow up--as well as a comfort to the family member's spouse/own parents.

Googling for something like this yields many results and is a bit overwhelming during this time. I tried going back through old Askmes, and something like CaringBridge seems close to the mark, though I don't know if it can be used in a memorial way.

I have seen recs for memorial fb pages (a bit hesitant about fb in general, but will use if that serves best), and legacy.com (mixed).

I'm mostly looking for:
- Ability for people to submit memories/stories/photos
- Ease of use/interface
- A level of privacy (or the ability to adjust privacy settings by post) would be nice--thinking if people wanted to share something more personal
- Something that feels more comforting design-wise (I went on to legacy.com and it felt very cold)

If there are any other recommendations for good sites or sites with good templates we could utilize, that would be fantastic. Thank you in advance.

posted by sprezzy to Human Relations (9 answers total)

My community used localwiki.org.
posted by aniola at 9:58 PM on November 29, 2020

I like wikis, personally, but I'll mention that earlier in the decade when I was visiting a U.S. hospital where a critically ill relative was the hospital itself actually offered some sort of service that involved creating a web page for coordinating information among loved ones, and possibly for also communicating with the hospital-bound person IIRC? I didn't partake, and I assume some sort of profit-making venture is involved as well, but if this is available in your case it might be easy to access and it seems like the sort of thing a hospital-attached social worker might help set up or use, if you can get in contact with anyone like that.

Whatever you choose, after you've put effort into the memorial site you'll want to use one or more web archiving services like the Wayback Machine (by far the most robust, supported by the international NGO the Internet Archive) or archive.today. You might also want to look into the more complicated process of saving a copy of a web site on a computer's hard drive, since through lawsuits and other means a “website owner” (despite the fact you actually did all the work and own the photos and stuff) can try to get web archives taken down en masse to compel the people who have created web sites or their families to pay for access or something.

There's also the American non-profit StoryCorps which specializes in guiding people to do audio interviews with relatives and community members, which they then organize and archive and make available publicly I think. They advertise a smartphone app for recording interviews.
posted by XMLicious at 2:05 AM on November 30, 2020

I think XMLicious is talking about CaringBridge.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 3:11 AM on November 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

A family member of mine is in the hospital undergoing chemo. I set up a caringbridge (which they post to to update friends and family); I think there is an option for people to leave well wishes and memories but I haven’t explored it much beyond the blog. I also organized a bunch of video well wishes for the patient via tribute.co, which worked well for most people. (You can also upload photos via tribute.co but I’m not sure how it would support written memories).

Wishing you all strength during this extra difficult time.
posted by girlalex at 3:45 AM on November 30, 2020

A few that skew 'warm and friendly' are Memories, InMemori, My Keeper, Tribute.co, and Everloved. The biggest variations between them seem to be pricing (some have both free and paid versions), and whether you want features for events, fundraising, etc. They also seem pretty friendly in terms of mobile browsing and contributing. Privacy is a bit different between the sites, but all seem to treat it more seriously than FB.

I haven't used GatheringUs, but as someone who has conducted a couple of online funerals, the all-in-one tech support they offer to run one is appealing. The tech aspect of hosting a pandemic funeral can detract from the ability of those gathered to focus on mourning the person they loved. If the family is considering an online funeral that might be a helpful service.

So sorry you're going through this, and it's kind of you to pitch in this way.
posted by cocoagirl at 5:17 AM on November 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm so sorry about your family member.

You might want to check out JamBios.com.
posted by Twicketface at 6:06 AM on November 30, 2020

I might keep it even simpler than the above suggestions -- a shared folder on a storage service like Box or GDrive. That way someone like you, OP, can do some curation before sending things live on the open Internet, if indeed you even decide to do that.

This also means you have a backup of contributed materials in case a service you choose goes under for whatever reason. Never, ever, ever rely on a single copy when you can avoid it.
posted by humbug at 8:23 AM on November 30, 2020

Having just been through this (twice), we used Tribute.co. You can film a video right from a camera, or put together photo montages and post them. (You can also download them to back them up.) Worked well.
posted by oddovid at 11:26 AM on November 30, 2020

I used Kudoboard for a group online card, but they also offer similar functionality for memorials.
posted by smokyjoe at 5:22 PM on December 1, 2020