I never met my dad's parents.
My dad had a hard childhood. His parents had their vices. He doesn't tell the nicest stories about them.
But I always wished I could have met them. Not because I thought they were good people necessarily — but because it would have helped me understand who my dad is. Where he came from. What he had to overcome to become the man who raised me.
Those answers went to the grave with them.
But my nana — that one's on me.
She was in my life. My whole life. And I still never once sat down and asked her about her real life.
All I have of her now is a voicemail she left me. It's not heartfelt. Just a check-in. But it's her voice.
I've saved it. I still listen to it. And the older I get, the more I wish I had video — any video — of her just telling me a story. Any story.
Kids running. Cousins laughing. Food on the table. And nobody walking over to ask them what it was all like.
Those stories didn't get passed down.
What gets passed down is a game of telephone. A story your aunt heard from her cousin, who got it from her uncle, who remembered it wrong. The details fade. The voice is gone. The personality is gone.
And one day your kids are sitting at a table telling stories about you — and they're getting it wrong too.
I started Before I Say Goodbye Films because I know I'm not alone in this.
But I also know what it feels like when someone gets it right.
It was my sixteenth birthday. My parents were newly divorced, and I wasn't seeing my dad the way I used to. High school was exactly when I needed him around — the daily stuff, the small questions, the things you only ask your dad. He just wasn't there for most of it. That wasn't his fault. It's just how things were.
I was in the kitchen with my friends when the doorbell rang. I ran to answer it.
My dad was standing there with a big bag in his hand. Something rectangle poking out of the top.
I hugged him and walked him inside. You could feel the tension in rooms like that — divorced parents, a new step-dad, everyone trying to be polite about it. I didn't care. I was just happy he was there.
Everyone sang happy birthday. Then the presents started.
My mom and my step-dad handed me a small box. Inside was a set of keys. The keys to my step-dad's 1998 Ford Expedition. My first car. Sixteen years old. Freedom.
I kept my composure. Hugged them both. Said thank you, thank you, thank you — and I meant it. That Expedition was going to change my life.
Then my dad handed me his bag.
Inside was a frame. Every photo of the two of us he could find — Pop Warner through high school — and in the middle, a poem he'd written about how proud he was to call me his son.
I forgot every person in that room. I cried in front of all of them. Sixteen years old.
That frame and that piece of paper didn't cost much. But it meant everything. Because it was him. His words. His love. Preserved in something I could hold.
Five minutes earlier I'd been handed the keys to my first car. It didn't come close.
That's what Before I Say Goodbye Films gives your family. On film. Forever.
We come to your home — anywhere in Southern California — with a full cinematic setup. I sit across from your mom, your dad, your grandparent. And I ask the questions your family never thought to ask. The ones that actually matter. They tell me their story in their own words, on their own terms, at their own pace. And we capture all of it.
The result is a Legacy Film your family keeps forever. Their voice. Their face. Their laugh. The way they told that story.
Not a voicemail. The real thing.
Fifteen years behind a camera. Work featured by Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, and Dr. Phil. A documentary I produced and directed with over a million views. Hundreds of hours sitting across from real people — learning how to ask the questions nobody in their family ever thought to ask, and how to make them feel safe enough to answer honestly.
None of it has ever meant more to me than this work.
Because this is the only kind of film I make that can't be made later. Once they're gone, their story is gone — and the closest you'll ever get to hearing it again is the version your cousin half-remembers at a dinner table.
I'd rather spend the rest of my career making sure your family never has to settle for that.
