Midori A., a verified customer, captured on video the moment when her Keepster message book arrived and to our astonishment, shared it on social media. In the post she shows herself, opening up the package that she’d been waiting for with enormous anticipation. Inside the box was the Keepster message book that she’d made for herself, filled with her late boyfriend’s texts.
Though very excited to see the book filled with memories, it was also a very bittersweet moment as her boyfriend had passed away much too soon.
In a subsequent customer review that Midori posted, she shared:
“On September 19th, 2020 my boyfriend passed away at the age of 23. We were together for a year and some change. Maneuvering through life without him was foreign and weird. I felt so lonely. I didn't know how to go back to my everyday life. I was interested in getting our texts turned into a book. We texted all the time. You can see the birth of a relationship develop as you read our texts. I wanted to preserve that and not lose it. I found Keepster. The whole process of choosing the texts and creating the book (fonts, color, title, etc.) was incredibly simple. I keep our text message book in my memory box for him now. I open it up and it brings the biggest smile to my face. It's been a year and 4 months since he's left this Earth. I'm afraid as time goes on and life events happen his memory and personality will fade away. Keepster has helped me remember who exactly he was. This company has created something wonderful and is helping more people than it'll ever know. God Bless.``
There simply aren’t enough words to say how tragic Midor’s loss is. But at the very least she can continue to feel some comfort and peace of mind knowing that their precious digital conversations had been preserved in a tangible form, in a book that she can look through anytime.
Though most people today lead fully digital lives, for many people there remains the lurking concern about what will become of their important yet ephemeral digital communications. Also, as phones keep changing, there are so many people who keep hanging on to much older devices just to be sure that the messages that matter can somehow remain accessible to them and never be “lost”.
Memory keeping in a digital era is a complex issue.
But the service that Keepster provides, allowing users to pick and choose which messaging conversations they’d like to save, and have printed in quality bound books, is a very straightforward and practical solution as much as it satisfies personal and sentimental needs.
No question that many people do use messaging for simple or transactional communications, and that some texts certainly can be communication at its most dumbed-down. Still, for many people, it is the preferred form of communication today, certainly more than emails or phone calls. Research now shows that on average Americans text twice as much as they call. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center amongst heavy text users, who receive more than 50 messages a day, 55% of them are much more likely to prefer texting to talking.
The ease of texting also has made it crucial for people who wish to stay connected and close with the people they really care about, for anything from quick check-ins to sharing big news. So in this context, texting or messaging can really be considered as conversation that has been transcribed, or as dialog, in written form.
This explains precisely why texting conversations can feel so meaningful.
When re-reading a chat thread, memories of specific moments can immediately be triggered and re-experienced. More than that, mere words or a turn of phrase can embody the very spirit of the texter - whether it’s their caring, their particular sense of humor, quirkiness, understanding or setting-you-straight wisdom. Plus, together with the pictures and emojis that can be included, our chat threads are imbued with a specific spontaneity and authenticity that serves to bring certain situations or moments right back to life.
As another Keepster customer once poignantly shared, that when she read through her book of texts with her late brother she said it made her “laugh and cry all at the same time as it felt as if he was sitting right there joking and laughing with her all over again”.
So, if in fact, so many texts can contain the essence of us, that explains why Midori went to such great lengths to generously share why she is so grateful to Keepster, and why she is so thankful that her Keepster Message book will help keep the cherished memories of her lost love alive.
Though our greatest wish is that Midori or any customer who has needed to create an in Memorium book hadn’t had to experience such tremendous loss, nor need the service that we provide. But without being able to alter the circumstances, we remain wholeheartedly committed to our mission, and humbled that we have been chosen to do our small part in helping those that we can through their difficult time.
