Death is frightening concept that petrifies even the hardiest man. Sooner or later, we will all meet the terrifying phantom of death, whether it’s the death of a loved one or our own life. Our culture places a tremendous amount of respect toward our dearly departed. Through wakes, memorials, holidays, and death anniversaries, we have different ways of showing our condolences. None of which, however, have successfully transitioned into the digital age of the 21st century. In this age, how do you innovate death?
Answer: by focusing on life. Cloud Memorials co-founders Jovan Que and Armand Pagcaliwagan have both been molded by the experience of death. Rather than letting it get the best of them, they developed an online platform that memorializes the dearly departed by celebrating life at the same time.
The end is the beginning
Back in their university days, they were devastated by the loss of their batchmate, Mikko Ona, who was Que’s close friend and Pagcaliwagan’s girlfriend at the time. The mourning period brought epiphanies both on a personal and a macro level.
Que noticed how people were going online to express their personal condolences through Ona’s Facebook wall or their own timeline. Often, they came with short farewell messages that told of times they spend together with her.
“She inspired me in a lot of ways—by being simple, by making the most out of everything,” Pagcaliwagan reminisced on the period after her death. “There were random people on Facebook who posted on her wall saying, ‘I didn’t know you, but I heard stories that people were saying and you must have been an awesome person; the world needs more people like you.’”
Que and Pagcaliwagan derived the inspiration and advocacy for Cloud Memorials from this digital experience. “Everyone leaves behind a legacy. Everyone has the right to have their stories told,” Que said.
Trudging through limbo
From the beginning, Cloud Memorials’ journey from conception was a rocky one. Since it started off as a personal advocacy for friends and family, the company took off more as a hobby in between work days. Coupled with the fact that they had no means to benchmark themselves, the group suffered from the usual problems that plagued startups: lack of motivation and dwindling finances with which to pay employees.
Initially, Que tried to quit his day job to focus exclusively on Cloud Memorials. But when the books kept showing red on expenses, he realized that balance was the key. He got another job, but he and the team never lost their sights on Cloud Memorials. Now, Que is serious about balancing his two jobs.
“Even in traffic, I would call [Armand] every morning to ask about the progress of Cloud Memorials. Every weekend, we try as much as possible to meet so we can align, plan, and brief everyone with what’s going on,” Que said.
Besides the finances and the time, Que would also cite the drop in weight that he suffered going to where he is now.
Going forward, the team would always harken back to the idea that Cloud Memorials can help humanity through their grief, remember their family, and keep their heritage. Despite the mountains they have to climb for Cloud Memorials to break out of its shell, the team remains steadfast in their passion. The advocacy keeps the team dedicated to their service.
Life after life
Cloud Memorials’ three-pronged advocacy is Remember by keeping your beloved’s memory alive; Immortalize by making their legacies permanent; and, Heritage by passing on their stories to future generations.
Users, or the ones the departed left behind, can make a profile or biography of their beloved, which includes their full name, nickname, a short description of their loved one, and a quote that they used to live by. The profile can then be managed by its creator or passed to other people.
The up-and-running memorial is open for others to post testimonies, photos, and stories they had with the deceased. Much like Facebook’s Like button, Cloud Memorials’ testimonies are affixed with a Memorialize button which digitally conveys sympathy. Unlike Facebook’s version, however, Cloud Memorials maintains anonymity as to who Memorializes with the testifier.
“It’s nice to hear stories from different perspectives. When different people share different stories about a person, you get a clearer picture of who the person was,” Que speaks of the platform’s accessibility to the deceased’s loved ones.
Usually hearing descriptions of their service as a sort of Facebook for the dead, Que and Pagcaliwagan are quick to clarify that Cloud Memorials is more of a Dropbox for memories. Rather than gathering dust inside cabinets and unused rooms, Cloud Memorials can immortalize precious memories of the departed.
More than giving the dead a chance to share their story, Cloud Memorials is also an outlet for mourners to share their own story and to commune with others in their grief. Que and Pagcaliwagan reminisced on how they were both relieved when they posted testimonials on Mikko Ona’s biography on the platform. “When I clicked the Submit button, it felt like getting something off my chest, as if I was talking to her directly,” Que added.
Admittedly, users won’t memorialize every single day. Doing so would be a sad. To complement the site’s main memorial feature, Cloud Memorials also has a developing blog on how to celebrate life. Once full developed, the blog will feature articles on how to enjoy life to the fullest and obituaries with famous personalities and historic events.
What comes after
By the time this article reaches print, Cloud Memorials will have been one of the featured startups to make an appearance at the recently-concluded Alpha: RISE 2016 in Hong Kong. In past years, the convention featured heavy hitters like Facebook and Tumblr. Cloud Memorials hopes to gain enough funding to implement its future plans. (To find out how they did, check out the article we’ll be posting online in mid-June.)
Some of Cloud Memorials’ planned features include the ability to send virtual candles and flowers, set testimonials to private, and allow terminally ill patients to set up their own accounts. Among their future updates, the inclusion of a QR code at the deceased’s final resting place is the grandest.
The QR codes envision a cemetery populated by stories rather than just bland gravestones. The planned QR codes make online memorializing accessible even without an actual resting place. This becomes especially useful for OFWs who can’t fly back home to send their condolences personally.
The afterlife
For all of their big features planned, the Cloud Memorials team’s grand dream is for everyone’s story to be told, remembered, and shared even in the afterlife.
Death will always be difficult. As scary as it is, fleeing from the concept of death won’t help us in the long run. Cloud Memorials approaches death by celebrating what came before it. What it accomplishes is not evasion, but acceptance through stories. What is life but a treasure trove of tales?
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Cloud Memorials can be accessed through cloudmemorials.ph. They will also be launching an app on the iOS App Store and the Android Play Store.
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