Don’t wait until you’re dead to hear all the nice things people have to say about you

People have the nicest things to say about when you die, but the deceased miss out on the kind messages. But a new startup called Tribute Co. is offering the opportunity for people to voice these feelings of love and admiration before we go.

The whole business is making videos of these eulogy-type messages for the living. A person signs up, then they send an email out to people they’d like to participate. Each person among the friends and family record a short video about why they love the person who is being honored.

The tribute might be for birthdays, graduations or if someone is going into surgery. You can either edit it together yourself on the website or you can pay for Tribute Co. to do it for you.

The basic package costs $50, and what you get at the end is a video from the people you love telling you how much they love you.

KIRO Radio’s Rachel Belle received one of the tributes as a gift for her birthday this year. She says it made her cry and really pulled up a lot of emotions, not all of them good.

“I have to say it is a weird, weird thing. It’s not just all wow this is so nice. I actually had a lot of moments come up where I said I’m glad I’m seeing my therapist next week,” says Belle. “It was a lot of mental stuff to go through.”

Ron & Don Show host Don O’Neill says it’s all about trying to let yourself accept these messages.

“You should just drink a half a bottle of wine and just receive it. I think a lot of us have a hard time receiving things and I think you’ve got to receive it.”

Don says particularly in this day and age where people communicate mostly by text and Facebook messages, it’s nice to see a platform that allows people to communicate their feelings about someone so directly.

“I don’t think we do that enough with each other,” says Don. “When people go old school and they send you a letter they’ve written by hand or they take time to record something like that or they send you a card, it says at some point during my day I sat down, I recorded this or I wrote this down because I thought you were important enough, and it’s not just one of the 20 Facebook messages or texts I’m sending out.”

Co-host Ron Upshaw says the only disappointing thing would be if they can’t get a good turnout for people to provide kind words.

“I’m just scared they’re going say, Ron we scoured your contacts, we got one video from your insurance agent and he’s thankful for your business.”