APIOH Blog

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.

-Abraham Lincoln

Because I have loved life, I shall have no sorrow to die.

- Amelia Burr

Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.

- Carl Sandburg

Dear Patrons,

At APIOH - A Place In Our Hearts, we strive to improve the systems of recognition and make them more meaningful.  

“APIOH: A Place In Our Hearts, provides systems to memorialize our departed, recognize our achievers, and show gratitude to our donors — within an organization and globally.” 

That is our motto.  Web based interactive recognition is our business.  So at APIOH we do memorial, donor and life event boards among others.   However, memorials is where the concept of web based interactive recognition systems began for me and why APIOH was born.   Here’s why.

When we are faced with the loss of someone in our lives, it is the time we realize we want to capture our memories of these individual and never let go of them.  Yet our means of memorializing them has gravitated to observing their deaths rather than appreciating their lives.  As a result, all we have to hold onto is memories or their deaths, not their lives; and all we observe is the date of their death, not the events of their life.

This phenomenon is demonstrated in the bond that is created between the family of a deceased and the funeral home or cemetery that handled the final arrangements for the departed.  A funeral home or cemetery generally has no contribution to the individuals’ well being while they live.  Yet it is revered because of the kindness it bestows in death.  It is a well deserved accolade, but the institutions that played an integral role in the ‘lives’ of the departed and their families - such as their places of worship, schools and community centers – should not be neglected.

That is why I create A Place In Our Hearts; a place where not only can the deaths of the departed be reflect on, but the lives they lived can be celebrated together with the people and in the institutions that held a place in their hearts.  Let us see their faces, hear their voices and share what they mean to us now even after they have left us.   We look forward to helping you and your organizations add meaning to the memories you hold dear.

Steve Katz, CEO
APIOH - A Place In Our Hearts

There are people who appreciate the motivation behind APIOH and there are those that scratch their head and say, “what for”.  There are those that really get what it means to remember a person or event, but unfortunately, those individuals are few and far in between.  To some, recognition is just not a necessity.  It should be obvious that to recognize someone is not merely to put a meaningless name on the wall, but rather to put meaning behind that name through reflection of the person or event.  That is a primary goal of APIOH - to educate the world on the importance of proper recognition.

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting a couple who know how to properly create a memory and to preserve it for future generations.   To afford them some anonymity, I will refer to them as Sam and Alice Brown.  Some time ago, my brother went to the home of the Browns for a meeting of an organization he was involved with.  He saw a piece of art he felt I needed to see.  I told him that I did not want to impose on the Browns.  He said he already cleared it with them and insisted that I go.  He said I would appreciate this art because of the passion I have for APIOH and what I am trying to achieve with the APIOH product lines.  Still, being that the Browns were very involved in business and community, I felt it was not right of me to intrude on them and waste their time.   I stonewalled for awhile but finally could not avoid following through.  I called Alice, and despite my insisting that I did not want to inconvenience them, she was extremely cordial and inviting and insisted I come.

What I saw when I finally visited truly amazed me.  Sam unfortunately lost his dear mother in 1999.  Upon her passing, he and his siblings were left with the daunting task of figuring what to do with the remnants left behind.  Most people at this point would realize that it is easier to just throw away everything and ‘move on’ leaving the memories to dissolve with the remnants.  Sam and Alice and Sam’s siblings found an artist and commissioned him to create a work of art to contain some of the artifacts left by Sam’s mother and his father who died in 1988.  What the artist created went well beyond their original expectations and was a testament to the family’s devotion to Sam’s parents and the family’s dedication to the project.

The artist made a sculpture containing artifacts accumulated by Sam’s parents dating back to the early part of the 20^th century.  The sculpture is interactive using sight, touch and sound to help visitors to the piece fully appreciate the individuals being remembered.  The chest is the original built by Sam’s grandfather and has three drawers.  The top one has documents such as a passport and letter from the early 20^th century.  The second drawer contains a meat grinder among other things.  The third remains closed.  Some of the items on top of the piece are a picture frame, an old radio, a spoon, a fountain pen, a bell, and an old stamp.  When someone touches one of the items, a short slideshow of Sam’s parents and family appears in the picture frame and a matching audio of them plays on the radio.  There is also a wooden chair Sam’s mother used to grind meat using the old grinder in the drawer.  And there are documentation and cd’s so all the family this generation and on will be able to fully appreciate the people memorialized in the piece.

There is a love and sensitivity that permeates from the piece that can only be appreciated when one visits the Brown home.  The sculpture is not thrown in the attic nor is it enshrined in a museum behind glass and ropes.  It is placed unassumingly in a place of prominence in their living room.  However, it does not take center stage.  Instead of taking over the Brown home, it has become a part of the Brown home to live on with them, their children and grandchildren, friends and relatives, and those like me who are fortunate enough to have had the knowledge of the piece and asked for an audience with it.

Seeing their pictures, touching their relics, reading their story and hearing their voices, one can feel that Sam’s parents are right there in the room. This is a true legacy and we should all learn how important it is to leave such a heritage for ourselves and for generations to come.  Not everyone can dedicate themselves so lovingly to the memory of their parents as Sam and Alice did, spending significant years and finances to bring this project to life, but spending a few hours should not be too much to ask for people who spent a lifetime to make our lives what it is.

Thank you Alice and Sam.