"We each have a unique story, we create legacies with our lives. I hope that my guided keepsake journals will encourage the unique stories of your loved ones, so that they may live on forever and can be passed through your family for generations to come."
Hello, and welcome. I’m so glad you’re here.
FreddieMae began as something deeply personal to me, born from love, loss, and the realisation that the stories of the people we love are far too precious to leave untold.
At the beginning of 2019, I received a phone call that changed everything.
My Dad’s prostate cancer had metastasised to other parts of his body.
I remember feeling as though I couldn’t breathe.
There are no words that quite describe the pain of knowing you may lose someone you love. But amongst the fear and sadness came an overwhelming sense of gratitude for something I had previously taken for granted.
Time.
Time to be together.
Time to listen.
Time to ask questions.
Time to say the things that matter.
One afternoon, while driving with Dad, he told me how much he treasured the conversations he’d had with his own father, my Grandfather, while the two of them worked on old cars together in the garage.
It was a simple memory, but one I had never heard before.
And it stopped me in my tracks.
If I didn’t know this story, what else didn’t I know?
I suddenly realised there was so much about my parents’ lives I had never thought to ask.
What were they like as children? What did they dream about when they were young? What moments changed them? What were they most proud of? What had life taught them? What memories did they hold closest to their hearts?
Of course, I knew my parents.
But mostly, I knew them through the eyes of their daughter.
I knew them as Mum and Dad.
I didn’t necessarily know the young people they had once been, or all the experiences, adventures, heartbreaks, decisions and little moments that had shaped the people they became.
And I wanted to.
So I began writing down questions.
At first, they were simply questions I wanted to ask my own parents. But as the list grew, I realised I wanted something more than their answers.
I wanted to be able to keep them.
Their stories. Their memories. Their words.
Their handwriting.
Something tangible that I could hold in my hands years from now, and one day pass down through our family.
And that is how the first FreddieMae journal came to be.
I set out to create a beautiful, timeless keepsake filled with thoughtful questions that gently encourage the people we love to tell us the stories we may never otherwise think to ask about.
Not just the big milestones, but the little things too.
The childhood memories. The family traditions. The funny stories. The people they loved. The choices they made. The lessons they learnt. The ordinary moments that, with time, become extraordinary.
Because one day, these are the things we wish we could ask about.
We so often assume there will be another Christmas, another Sunday lunch, another cup of tea, another car ride.
Another opportunity to ask.
But time has a way of moving much faster than we expect.
FreddieMae journals are my way of helping families have those conversations now, while there is still time to ask, listen, laugh, reminisce and discover something about the people we thought we already knew everything about.
Every person has a story worth preserving.
And perhaps someone you love is just waiting to be asked.
My hope is that a FreddieMae journal becomes far more than a book in your family. I hope it becomes a treasured piece of someone you love, written in their own words and their own handwriting, that you, your children, and generations still to come can return to again and again.
Because our stories are part of what we leave behind.
And the stories of the people we love deserve to be remembered.
Kelly x