Julie Wilkerson's Story

Several years ago, my husband and I were making arrangements to celebrate my parents’ 50 wedding anniversary. It had become a custom in our family that all momentous occasions would be commemorated with a picture slideshow … going as far back as 20 years earlier when we would use a slide projector and a cassette tape recorder timed to play special music as the pictures displayed. We knew way back then how much it touched the heart to reminisce the good times along with music that stirs the soul.

So for this special occasion, we were already at work collecting 50 years worth of photos and special music to make the most important montage we had done so far. Then … suddenly, my mother took ill. She was diagnosed pancreatic cancer and only given a short time to live.

As we watched her rapidly decline, we knew that this montage would take on a much different meaning for her, my father and our family and friends. One evening we set her up with her family sitting on the floor of her room and huddled close, and we watched her watch her life with eyes that sparkled and glistened. It was as if the bubble over her head read, “I’ve had such a wonderful life…” The rest of us barely drew a breath as we knew this would linger as one of the most precious moments of that horrible ordeal.My mother passed away a week later, only 6 days short of their 50 anniversary. We showed this video again to the large group of family and friends who came together to support us and cry with us at this tragedy. But even through those tears, we found our hearts lifted … the pictures that paraded in front of our eyes transcended us to better days, the best of times.

I remember sitting at my dining room table with my dear, longtime friends, Cathie and Juli, who have also been gifting hundreds of people with their own precious walks through time with their videos. We decided to team up to create this for others as our own business, touching one heart after another. And at that dinner table, the name “Tears of Joy Video” was born.

We realized then that this same gift – the gift of marking the special times in life, was something we could pay forward to others and create a memory escape to mark the passing of years. We could announce a new birth, a graduation, a wedding, an anniversary … even a passing of a loved one – and bring out the joy from the tears. Ask us about the joy it brings us to watch the faces of our clients and friends as they watch their own life pass by in pictures. Ask us and you will know the passion it brings us to know we might just have made a difference in the life of another, because this is what it is all about.

-- Julie Wilkerson
Julie is an excellent writer.  ReadJulie's Blog