A Westport woman came to News 12 Connecticut for help when her father left her video tapes after passing away.

"We lost him on June 5, to dementia and diabetes. He was just two days shy of his 77th birthday," Melissa Levy said of her father, Bob Picheny.

She said he left his children digital video tapes more than 13 years ago. "They're actually dated. These tapes are dated February 29, 2008," Levy explained.

She said her father recorded the tapes, addressed to her and her brother, after he had suffered a silent heart attack. "And then he was going in to get some stents, and so he made this tape before he got the stents put in in case anything happened," Levy said.

Levy said her mother found the tapes in Florida, but she didn't have a deck or a camcorder to play back the DVC cassettes. Levy then decided to call News 12 Connecticut.

She said her father was always a talker and the recordings show no exceptions to that.

"My tape was so long that it actually cut him off at the end, and I didn't get to see him finish," Levy said. In the videos, Picheny expresses love and pride but also doles out fatherly advice.

"What he was concerned he'd passed off to me, like his stuff that he'd passed on to me, and he wanted to help me through that, those life challenges, and he was giving me advice," Levy said. She said it's the kind of conversation she's been wishing she could have with her dad for years now.

"'You look so good, you're so beautiful,' he would say those things, and he always remembered my name, but we couldn't have those deep meaningful talks that we always did," she said.