My older brother with my sons, 2007

Throughout my book talks about It Takes a Lifetime to Learn How to Live, one thing seems to resonate with people more than almost anything else: when someone dies, their memories die with them.

I hear it again and again. I wish I had asked my mother. I wish I had listened more closely to my grandfather. I wish I knew that story.

We always think there will be more time.

When we’re young, we don’t always care about the stories. We’re busy living our own lives. But then we get older. We have children and grandchildren of our own, and suddenly we want to know. Not just the names and dates we can find through genealogy, but the stories. Who were these people? What did they love? Why did they leave? What did they bring with them? We begin to wonder where we came from and who came before us.

And sometimes, by the time we think to ask, there is no one left who knows the answers.

I am one of those people who wants to know the stories. I didn’t set out to become the keeper of our family’s memories, but somewhere along the way, that is partly what happened. And since writing Lifetime, nieces, nephews, and cousins have thanked me for preserving pieces of our family’s history they never knew.

I hope this entry encourages you to safeguard some of your family’s memories. It has never been easier. Record yourself, write down the story behind an old photograph, buy one of those memory books and fill it in, or use technology to turn your recorded memories into something written.

Because somewhere in every family, there is someone who is the last person who remembers.

Maybe that person is you.