Oh my heck, I just don’t even know where to begin.

On the old 8mm home movies from 1962, nothing could have prepared me for viewing them after you sent me the digitized versions. I should have gotten a box of Kleenex or roll of paper towels before I started. I have very few possessions that belonged to my mother but I do have 80-100 photos. But they still didn’t prepare me for seeing her in video. All of a sudden there she was, in full life again, dancing and clowning around for the camera as she was hanging clothes in the back yard. Before I knew it I was bawling like a baby, sobbing uncontrollably to see my mother again. I thought how much she looked like my youngest daughter, and then realized that she was 24 in the video, the same age as my daughter now. Wow. There were more scenes of my family, my father, sisters, and my grandmother. I texted some screen shots to my two sisters and then we were all crying. I hadn’t realized until that moment that photos are wonderful snapshots of the past but they don’t convey personality. Thanks to these 8mm home movies that you were able to digitize for me, my mother lives again, my great grandparents, and others who I have seen in decades who I never expected to see again in this life. It was an experience I can’t begin to explain, but thank you so much!! I’m bawling all over again, darn it, please send a box of Kleenex out with these things!

The second thing you did was digitize my grandfather’s life story for me. I recorded him way back in 1984 and I was certain the cassette tapes had long passed their prime and was pretty sure they would be too muddled to even hear anything. But you worked some magic and sent me back everything in digitized form and it sounds as good as it does the day I recorded him! I wrote his history from those tapes but reading the written word is nothing like listening to him. Somebody asked me once who I would like to spend an hour with if I could pick anybody in the history of the world. There are a lot of people on that list but if I could only pick one, it would be my grandpa. He was one of the most influential people in my life and now thanks to you, I can listen to him tell his stories while I sit at my computer doing my daily tasks. It’s like he’s right here with me and we’re spending the day together. (Darn it, where’s that Kleenex!)

If anyone out there is hesitating spending the money, I can promise that you won’t regret it. I’m on a shoestring budget right at the moment but knowing what I know now, if I had to sell a kidney to get my mother on video and my grandpa with me here every day as I work, I’d do it in a heart beat. I’d gladly spend 10 times what it cost to get these 8mm home movies and old cassette tapes digitized now that I have them and see what they mean to me in digitized form. I’ve shared them with other family members and we’ve all rejoiced in what this has brought to our lives.

Thank you again Legacy Autobiography!