Leaving behind a farewell video

Thru My Eyes, a non-profit organisation helps the dying make farewell videos for their loved ones.

Carri Rubenstein, founder of the Thru My Eyes, helps people with fatal illnesses - usually cancer-stricken parents with young children - make farewell videos for their families. Photo: AP

Carolyn Ngbokoli doesn’t remember the sound of her mother’s voice. She was just 19 when her mom died, and no recordings were left.

Now Ngbokoli, 37, faces the possibility of her own early death, from breast cancer. But she has made sure that her sons, 4 and 6 years old, can see how she loved them, hear how she spoke to them and be reminded of her advice to them long after she’s gone.

With the no-cost help of an organisation called Thru My Eyes, Ngbokoli, of White Plains, New York, recorded a video of memories and guidance.

“I want to be able to tell my boys as much as I can and leave them something to look back on,” she said.

For free

Thru My Eyes, based in Scarsdale, New York, and Memories Live, of Milburn, New Jersey, are among the nonprofits filling a

niche in which people with terminal diagnoses usually cancer-stricken parents with young children get emotional as well as technical support, for free.

E. Angela Heller, a social worker for cancer patients at New York’s Presbyterian Hospital, has sent half a dozen patients to Thru My Eyes, which was founded by a cancer survivor. Ngbokoli found the production to be an emotional process.

“There were times when I was laughing about funny things that happened to us,” Ngbokoli said. “But then there were times when it was torturous, where I had to look in the camera and say, ‘If you’re watching this and I’m not here.’”

Cancer survivor

Carri Rubenstein, 61, is the co-founder and president of Thru My Eyes, which has completed more than 40 videos. A cancer survivor herself, she was inspired when she heard a friend with a bad diagnosis wish aloud a few years ago that she could find someone to help her make a video for her family. Kathy Yeatman-Stock, a social worker in the cancer centre at the Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center in Pomona, California, contacted Thru My Eyes in hopes of getting patients at Pomona to make videos via Skype.

“People in the past have left letters and birthday cards for their children, but there is so much more impact with seeing the parent on film,” she said.

She said one mother read the children’s book “Goodnight Moon” on the video so her children could hear it forever.

Such videos convey “a very personal touch, going beyond the stiff words you might have in your will, let’s say,” said Sally Hurme, a project adviser at AARP, the advocacy group for seniors, and author of “Checklist for Family Survivors.”

The videos run between an hour and 90 minutes and include photos, documents, music and interaction with the family.

Kerry Glass, 41, a former nursing home art therapist who runs Memories Live, says she prompts patients to talk about the overview of their lives as well as details- “the house you grew up in, your favourite game, your first job, your first car.”

Ngbokoli is enthusiastic about her video and says she’s recording more family moments in hopes of being around to update it in a few years.

“It’s a nasty cancer that I have, but I’m responding well,” she said. “Every day’s a gift, so as long as I’m here, why not document it?”