Why Solace Moment Exists
In the late 1990s, I was young, working as a mechanic and raising two sons.
One of my coworkers—a friend—experienced a terrible accident involving an ATV and his four-year-old son.
I remember standing at the funeral, staring at that small coffin while tears streamed down my face. My heart broke for my friend, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my own children.
How do you come back from something like this?
That question stayed with me.
Then, in September of 2001, my family was awakened by relatives who came to tell me that a good friend of mine had been killed earlier that night in a motorcycle accident.
He had left work after having a bad day and said he wanted to clear his head.
He never made it home.
A blind spot in the road and another vehicle changed everything in an instant.
At his funeral, I watched his seven-year-old son struggle to fully understand that his dad was gone. And once again, my thoughts went straight to my own boys.
I remember thinking:
If something happened to me, how would they know how much I loved them?
How could I make sure I was still there, in some way, for the milestones of their lives?
Graduations. Weddings. Children of their own. The moments when a son might still want to hear his father say, I’m proud of you. I love you. I’m still with you.
Back then, I started thinking about a way to prerecord messages and somehow make sure they were delivered at the right moments.
The technology wasn’t there yet, but the idea never really left me.
And then something happened that made that period of my life feel even heavier.
While we were gathered in the living room making funeral arrangements for my friend, we watched the events of September 11 unfold live on television.
We were already grieving one person we loved, and suddenly we were watching thousands of families experience loss at once.
I remember thinking:
What is this world coming to?
And again:
What happens to all of those families? What remains when someone is suddenly gone?
The idea stayed with me for years.
Then, a few years ago, I lost my father to cancer.
That loss brought all of those old thoughts back.
This time, I decided I didn’t want the idea to stay an idea anymore.
Technology had finally reached a place where something meaningful could actually be built—secure cloud storage, encrypted private vaults, artificial intelligence, transcription, audio and video preservation, and tools that could help people tell their stories before those stories disappeared with them.
So I built Solace Moment.
Not because I wanted to build another app.
Because I wanted families to have something I had spent decades wishing existed.
A place where a voice could remain.
Where stories could be preserved.
Where wisdom could be passed down.
Where someone could leave behind the words their children or grandchildren might one day desperately want to hear.
I’m proud of you.
I love you.
I’m still with you.
Solace Moment exists because photos can show us what someone looked like.
But their voice, their stories, their laughter, their beliefs, their lessons, and the way they spoke to us are what make them feel present again.
And those things deserve to be preserved.
Your voice. Your stories. Your legacy.