Over the years I’ve lost people I love, family and friends I always assumed would be around for a lot longer than they were.
I still have plenty of pictures of them, and for a while I thought that was enough. It isn’t. Their faces stay with you, but the rest slips away so quietly that you don’t notice until it’s gone, and one day I realized I couldn’t quite hear their voices anymore, or remember exactly how they laughed. I would give a lot for a single recording of them talking about anything at all: what they ate growing up, what scared them, what they’d say to me now. I never thought to ask, because I assumed there would always be more time.
That’s what got me thinking about the people I still have. I didn’t want to feel that regret again, so I started looking for a simple way to hold on to their stories, in their own words and their own voices, somewhere they wouldn’t get lost.
Kinely is what came out of that. Every day it asks the people closest to you one question, everyone answers, and every answer is kept. I built it for my own family first.
Don’t wait the way I did. Start with the people you love most and ask them something today. Most of what you’ll hear is small and funny and good, and you get to enjoy it now, not only look back on it later.
Gabriel Prroj
Founder, Kinely