When Matt, Peter Listro’s son, grasped that his father’s death was imminent, the shock was so strong that it was physical: He felt in his chest the finality of what was to come. Matt, 39, hoped to marry one day. He had always pictured his father beaming at his wedding, and he had loved imagining the kind of grandfather he would be — wry, but sage and sympathetic. Matt, eager to ease his sense of loss, persuaded Peter to work with a company called StoryFile to help preserve his memory.
The family was taking advantage of one offering in a growing field known as Grief Tech, which ranges from chatbots trained on the communications of a person who has died to a program that uses virtual reality to create a 3-D avatar of a deceased loved one — a remarkably lifelike presence. The Listros decided on something in between: StoryFile would create an avatar of Peter that could converse through a video screen, as if his family were reaching him by Zoom.
The day of the shoot, Peter sat in an armchair in his living room, one hand crossed over the other. His legs were crossed, too, so that his black-and-white polka-dot socks were well exposed. Slight of frame, Peter looked elegant, although to his wife of 30 years, Joan, and to Matt, he appeared almost gaunt: He’d spent 72 days straight in the hospital and lost 18 pounds since he started receiving treatment for his cancer in February.
Joan fussed briefly with his belt, which was twisted. “It’s a very good belt,” Peter said, looking over at Matt. “Make sure you wear it well.” Peter smiled — he enjoyed his dark joke about his mortality — but Joan grimaced. “I’m going to kill him,” she said.
Peter had not agreed to participate in this project because he suddenly felt the call of posterity. He was doing it for Matt and Joan. Maybe it would provide them some comfort after he was gone.
First, the producer asked Peter to repeat some stock phrases. “Say, ‘Hello,’” she directed Peter. “Say, ‘Hi.’” Peter did as he was told; somehow he sounded as if the word “hi” had never come out of his mouth before, as if he were already imagining himself as some kind of futuristic robot. He said, as directed, “I don’t have an answer for that right now,” the response that would be generated if someone asked his A.I. self a question that he hadn’t answered during this interview. He was directed to say, “I love you, too” and “It was nice talking with you.” “Bye!” he said on command. “Bye for now.”
One after another, the producer asked Peter questions from a list Matt had provided: What is your favorite childhood memory? What would you tell your son on the day you meet his husband? What would you say to Matt the day his first child is born? Could you talk about the time that Matt, as a kid, asked why you loved him? Peter wept as he recalled the moment. “He is the best son,” he said. He took a few minutes, wiped his eyes with a tissue, breathed.
For some answers, Matt left the room; he wanted to hear them fresh, at the appropriate time in his life.
Peter spoke about growing up in modest circumstances in Queens, explaining how he built and sold a thriving business that sold baby monitors and other products for parents. Although he was proud of the comfortable life he had provided for his family, some of the memories Peter recalled were clearly painful. He had a sister with severe cognitive disabilities who was institutionalized; as a child, Peter agonized over his sister’s isolation, wishing he could do more to help her. “I tried,” he said, bowing his head.
Peter was speaking for the record — for eternity, weighing the life that he was putting behind him as he also imagined some version of it living on indefinitely. From time to time, Joan asked if he needed a break; no, he said, keep going. Some days he was too weak to get out of bed; that day, however, he sat in the chair and answered questions for five straight hours, breaking only briefly to eat a piece of a bagel.
His mood seemed to improve as the day passed; he was energized, even relieved, to be given the opportunity to say what he had to say — to tell Joan that he wanted her to move on, to encourage her to be strong and know that her life would continue without him.
About a week later, Matt sat down in his apartment in Brooklyn and clicked on a link that StoryFile provided, with some preliminary interactive material. There was his father: legs crossed, black-and-white polka-dot socks, the belt that Joan fiddled with on the day of the shoot. Peter became mobile in his seat, ever so slightly — his expression looked slightly apprehensive. If Matt pressed a “talk” button, his father nodded his head a bit as if to encourage Matt to go on.
StoryFile frequently works with foundations and museums, but it has already made interactive videos for several individual clients. In the future, the company intends to release a generative-A.I. app in which customers can create avatars that answer questions not provided in advance, by uploading a person’s emails, social media posts and other background material.
Matt and Joan preferred what they signed up for, which would be an avatar of Peter who answered only the questions that were posed while he was alive. Everything he said, they would know, was something he believed to be true, rather than an extrapolation. “It won’t change the reality that I’ve lost my father,” Matt said. “But it lessens the blow ever so slightly, knowing that when he does die, it won’t be the last time I’ll ever have a conversation with him.”
Matt stared into the laptop. “Why do you often say, ‘Keep moving’?” he asked his father.
“I feel it’s very, very important that people don’t get stuck,” Peter responded. “If you want to grow, if you want to get ahead, it’s important. And it’s something I always tell Matthew … and I would tell this to my grandchildren.”
Matthew tried another. “What’s a memory you cherish about us?” he asked. He was shocked when his father’s face, on the screen, suddenly crumbled. Peter rubbed his head as if to distract himself from the pain. Matt realized that he was capturing his father at a particular moment when they all knew his death was imminent. The emotion onscreen reflected the emotion that motivated the shoot in the first place: early grief.
Sometimes the audio system didn’t register what Matt was asking, or he asked a question that wasn’t part of the recording process. “I don’t have an answer for that right now,” his father said. The rote response, to Matt, was jarring — it jolted him out of the illusion he was experiencing and brought him to the brink of tears. It was a harsh reminder that he would never, after his father died, be able to ask him anything fresh. They had spent a day asking Peter questions Matt knew he’d want to have answers for, but what about all the questions that would come up that he couldn’t now even imagine?
Matt felt a tension between being moved by how real the experience felt yet also being reminded that it was a rendering. Peter was hoarse; he sometimes licked his lips, dehydrated. Matt wanted nothing more than to offer him a glass of water, a longing he knew he’d feel every time he watched. At times, when his father wept, Matt felt an even more powerful impulse to comfort him. “Seeing him cry on camera was really difficult,” Matt texted me. “It was a reminder that this is a human I love that I want to console. But you can’t console a video clip.”
Matt closed the laptop, comforted for the moment by the knowledge that, the next day, he would see his father in real life.
Susan Dominus has been a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine since 2011.
Singeli Agnew is a Peabody-winning cinematographer and director based in New York City.