Tell HN: I interviewed my dad before he died

I wish I'd done something like this. My dad passed earlier this year. I don't have any video recordings of his voice. Only memories. I had no idea what it would be like this side of his death. I think you made a really smart move.

I hope your father has found some peace. It has been a dream of mine to record enough of my father to create a neural net capable of imitating him. I know it would be a phantom parroting for me, but still. I understand this idea is a bit disturbing to some, but maybe it could ease the grief of others.

Sorry for your loss.

Thanks for sharing this. I interviewed both of my parents (separately) several years ago and recorded the video and took notes that I transcribed. They are both still living but these are some of the most valuable digital files that I possess.

I may interview them jointly now. But doing it separately helped get their individual personalities to come through.

This is great idea. I wish I had done this with my Mom but am deff going to do with my Dad.

Can you recommend some good questions to ask during the interview that resonated when you were watching it?

15 years ago I had the lighnight idea to interview my grandfather who join the french resistance during the WWII. I interviewed him about the life before the war, in the country and his experience during the war, when he had to become clandestine in his own country because he didn't joined the mandatory german working program (STO). It's the most concrete thing we keep from him, and I just regret I didn't interview him more.

Thank you, so very much, for sharing this. This exact activity has been at the top of my mind of late, and I will be using your experience as motivation before I lose my chance.

Posting this could not have been easy for you, it might be lost to history eventually, but know that it has already impacted the lives of others. Profoundly.

It isn't enough, and yet it is a pretty powerful outcome not only of your Dad's time here with you, but also how he raised a human being who in a time of hurt and loss wanted to help others.

Thank you, and thanks to your Dad as well.

Thanks for sharing this!

Did you have any themes around the questions you asked?

    * Do it chronologically, start with their birth, their family, the childhood, the house, the toys, the games, school... then their adult life, their work...
    * Something I was interested in was how life was like back in the day, food, comfort, customs. Anything that interests you and that they may have a opinion or an historical perspective about.
    * You may use world events to help anchor questions but it didn't work well for me.
    * A good question template is "what was the best childhood/parenthood/travel/work/X memory?"
    * Last, I added the themes (most I didn't have time to ask about): education, religion, regrets, health (especially hereditary issues), war...
    * When dealing with memory issues, help if you can but do not contradict too much because it may make them give up. Depending on their mental state, the point may be just to hear them talk and not to have a detailed account of events.
    * Cut the phone. I'm very upset that too many of his last waking hours I spent with him he spent on bullshit phone calls (old people get many).

There are a bunch of books that can help on this, questions to ask, etc. For example: "300 Questions to Ask Your Parents Before It's Too Late" -- https://www.amazon.com/Questions-Your-Parents-Before-Late/dp...

My dad and I did not have the kind of connection where I could have done this but I applaud you for doing it and for sharing it. I have other family members where this sort of thing is much more applicable for me and I think you just gave me the push I needed to go and act on it. So thank you very much.

I always wanted to do this with my grandfather. We had so many stories from his accounts and from his children and grandchildren, but never a through recap of his experience.

I always slacked and just toyed with the idea, but never acted on it. Now there's he is gone, and along with him the opportunity.

I am happy that you did, and I will take advantage of doing so with my dad.

I did this with my grandpa and it turned it into a website. Great bonding experience. Learned a lot. https://tony.basqu.es

Thank you for reminding me to interview my mom.

Unfortunately my dad isn’t at a place where I can do this.

This is a super important thing to connect with my parents.

I used Artifact to do this with my grandfather. Recorded his stories and voice for posterity as a series of podcasts basically with a professional interviewer and recording team.

A couple years ago I bought my parents a digital voice recorder and 128gig SD card. I asked them to spend a little time each week just talking about whatever parts of their life they wanted, and what they remember of my grandparents and great-grandparents. I don’t think they’ve done it at all. :’(

Wow you must still really be in shock. From healthy to passed in just a few months sound very traumatic for you and your family. Sorry you had to go through that.

My father had prostate cancer that became metastatic & while I had a couple years with him before he passed, I didn't get it together to record his stories. I did record a few, but I really wish I had more. I think it's great what you did & you will always be able to look back at those & share them with your future kids.

Be well.

I've done quite a few video interviews (>120 hours). Notably, I interviewed someone else's dad (a friend's wife) who is dying now.

He had a fascinating life being sent out for re-education in Communist China but winding up in a then remote tropical paradise on the Burmese border. The locals were friendly and already effectively organized their villages on a communal basis so he said there was basically little work to do because the land was so fertile and few rules except that local girls were off-limits. Days were spent enjoying the natural environment, eating tropical fruit and BBQ fish and forest meats.

One day a troupe of city communists arrived for some reason or other, and he met a lovely girl. When he got the chance he moved back to the city and sought her out, they were married and he was assigned a job as an economic agent, being posted to remote factories around the country to negotiate trading deals to bolster the domestic economy under socialism. In those days few people could travel and he was lucky, despite having to spend most of his time on the road, to be able to travel the whole country and see its character before its modern destruction.

I asked him about how the travel was organized, he said every day there was a telex waiting for him at his assigned hotel which would tell him where he was going next. "Catch the #12 bus to West Station, then obtain a fare to Little Black Village, walk east to Factory #12". He said a lot of the travel was by donkey cart and other sort of ad-hoc methods. He was thus surprised every day and could only observe.

He seemed genuinely flattered by my interest in his life and included other information in the video. In the end it's always good to have some catch-all open questions like: "Is there anything else you'd like to say to future generations about the changes you have witnessed in your lifetime?"

I suppose I should upload it after he dies. Currently I have a copy and the family has a copy.

There's a great TV program in Australia where the host interviews randoms literally on the street: https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/program/front-up

Sorry for your loss. During covid, I was lucky enough to be afforded the ability to buy a condo about 100 feet from my dads house. I see him almost every day now. We both know that he is getting on in his old age/health and this is the last time that I'll have a chance to spend time with him. Definitely appreciate it.

I recorded a late night conversation with my dad a couple months before he died of dementia and cancer. It was moreso him ruminating on his life's regrets. It was a lot of word salad but there was a genuine feeling there that he had squandered a lot of his time. He kept saying that he "fell off" somewhere along the way.

Today is my Mom's birthday, the first since she passed at the beginning of the year.

Thanks for sharing. I'm lucky to have the memories and records that I do.

Sorry for your loss.

The thing I noticed is that I have my own life - my grandparents passed some stories to me as well as my parents and they are part of my life. I have photos from like 1900's passed to me as family heirloom.

But I came to realization that I am unable to understand even 15% of any other persons life. Even my SO life will be maybe tops 40% that I can grasp or share as we spend really a lot of time together.

Maybe that is me but I feel that we are really isolated and our communications with words is really limited. Even being together in the same moment - each person feels/reacts a bit different.

I paint it as tragic in a sense but it is also beautiful that we really are unique snowflakes in the end.

So in the end I don't feel like it is even important for me to make some kind of interview - important part is to remember that they were alive and their life was their own and only their own as I cannot touch it I cannot grasp it - hence all life being special and to be celebrated, because there is not going to be second one that is identical with its struggles and with its dreams.

I'm sorry for your loss. Know that, in time, the pain lessens and becomes unfocused, though you'll always miss him.

I lost my grandmother (who partially raised me) and my father (who is the reason I am an engineer) in the same year, 2014. I wish I had done this for my grandmother and my father. I'm glad that you got a chance to do what I didn't.

Good on you for recognizing and seizing the opportunity. My dad died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2014 (same as my mom, in 2001), and there's so much I wish I'd asked them, about their lives and families. I'm especially disappointed about missing out on adult conversations with my mom, as she died when I was 19 when she still thought of me as a kid. Some of my most vivid conversations with my dad were in my late 20s, over a beer or two during one of his visits, but those still feel inadequate.

I've done a lot of genealogical research into my dad's side of the family (I'm eligible for Italian citizenship through my great-grandparents), and it's been really fun finding out little tidbits about his family. But there's so much I wish I could ask him, as it's all fragmentary and big-picture, and lacks context.

I'm so envious of you that you have a recent, focused video record of your father. My sister has a bunch of old VHS tapes that might have my parents on them, but the tapes may have degraded, and, regardless, they're not recent, and even if the tapes are still functional, they'll be of generally poor quality and resolution (and worse, we were cheap and would record everything in EP mode). Neither of my parents liked having their photos taken, so I don't have a lot to work with there either.

So sorry about your dad, but I'm glad you at least got to get a little closer to him before he passed.

I did the same thing for the same reason with the same result and am just posting this to concur with what you said: everyone should do this while you are young and have your memory.

Which makes me thing: we are relatively young and have our memories (again, relatively) intact. Should we be recording ourselves for our kids?

If you don’t have kids or nieces/nephews, but think you might, should you do the same?

With phones, are we recording ourselves anyway and won’t have to worry about this?

Sorry for your loss.

Tangential, but for those with easy access to their parents: Contact them, for whatever reason, or none at all. Text, call, facetime, or visit them in person — what really matters is that you're in each other's minds somewhat regularly.

I don't have a perfect relationship with my parents (dad in particular), but even as a grown adults we make an effort to keep in contact regularly. I'm lucky enough to live a few minutes from my parents, and can stop by for lunch on a whim (And mom is more than happy to whip up a home-cooked meal!).

I fully understand that some might have a toxic relationship where this might be impossible, but for those who might have started to drift due to life, there's a lot of upside.

I thought about doing this with my mum.

The problem was she was scared of dying I couldn't broach the subject with her. She left me a bunch of decisions and no stories for my kids.

I wonder if the type of parent who consents to an interview has probably instilled in you a wonderfully inquisitive attitude. My mum did for me to be fair - she just hid her lack of one from me during my childhood.

In fact she hid lots from me. She was not one for looking back. She said my dad left me and never looked back, and neither did she.

As I went through her stuff I found books and books photos. I found every card I've ever written her. I felt like I didn't know her fully.

If I had my time again, I'd push her for the bits I didn't know. Early relationships. How she felt about becoming a grandmother not 1 or 2 but 3 times. Stories not for me, but for my kids. "this is your nana. Not the pictures or the Xmas toys. The imperfect person who hid her idiosyncrasies and addictions from her son so he'd grow up without them"

My wife and I have no remaining parents, so missed this boat.

Final tip: find out passwords, funeral songs, emails of friends, etc, as its way hard once they've gone.