My dad used to tell this story about his grandfather showing up to a family wedding in a borrowed suit that was three sizes too big. He'd tell it every Thanksgiving, and we'd all groan because we'd heard it a hundred times. Then he died, and I realized nobody else knew the details. Not really. We all remembered the rough outline, but the way he told it, the parts that made it funny, the little aside about why the suit was borrowed in the first place -- that was gone.

That was when I started thinking seriously about when to write a memoir. Not because I had some grand literary ambition, but because I watched an entire piece of our family disappear in real time. And I bet something similar has happened to you, or will soon.

The moment you realize stories are disappearing

Here's what nobody tells you about family stories: they don't vanish all at once. They fade. Your aunt stops telling the one about the road trip to Mexico. Your mom mixes up the details of how she met your dad. The version you heard at age ten is different from the version at twenty, and by thirty, nobody's telling it at all.

Sometimes the wake-up call is a death. Sometimes it's a diagnosis. Sometimes it's just sitting at a holiday dinner and noticing that you're now the oldest person at the table who remembers what Grandma's kitchen smelled like on a Sunday morning.

Whatever form it takes, there's usually a quiet moment where it hits you: if I don't write this down, it's gone forever.

That's the sign. Not a dramatic one. Not a lightning bolt. Just a slow, creeping awareness that memory has an expiration date, and yours is ticking.

Why "someday" is the most dangerous word

I've talked to a lot of people who say they want to write their story. Parents who want their kids to know where they came from. Grandparents who worry their grandchildren will grow up without knowing who they were. People going through illness who suddenly feel the urgency of getting it all down.

Almost none of them have started.

The reasons are always reasonable. They're busy. They don't know where to begin. They think they need to wait until they have more time, or more distance from the events, or until the kids are older, or until they retire. The list goes on.

But here's what I've seen play out again and again: "someday" doesn't come. The person who was going to write their memoir after retirement gets sick. The parent who was going to record their stories "when things calm down" dies in an accident. The grandmother who knew all the old family recipes never wrote them down, and now they're approximations at best.

I don't say this to scare you. I say it because I've watched it happen in my own family, and I wish someone had been more direct with me about it sooner. There is no right moment. There is only now, or probably never.

The signs it's actually time

You don't need a terminal diagnosis or a milestone birthday to start. The signals are usually quieter than that. Here are some I've noticed:

Your kids are asking questions. When a child asks "What was it like when you were little?" they're telling you they want your story. They might not ask again for years. That curiosity is a gift, and it has a window.

You're the last one who remembers. Maybe your parents are gone, or their memory is fading. Maybe you're the only person alive who knows why your family left their hometown, or what your great-aunt was really like. That knowledge sits only in your head, and heads are fragile.

Something big just happened. A birth, a death, a move, a diagnosis, a divorce, a recovery. Big life events have a way of shaking loose the feeling that your story matters. Trust that feeling. It's right.

You keep thinking about it. If the idea of writing your story keeps coming back to you, that's not random. That's your gut telling you something. The people who actually finish their memoirs almost always describe a period where the idea just wouldn't leave them alone. If that's you right now, pay attention.

You're afraid of forgetting. This one's the most honest. You notice your own memory isn't what it used to be. Details you once knew cold are getting fuzzy. That fear isn't weakness. It's wisdom. It's telling you to act while you still can.

You don't have to write a book

Here's where most people get stuck. They hear "memoir" and picture a 300-page hardcover on a bookstore shelf. They think they need to write beautifully, to have a dramatic story, to spend years crafting something literary.

You don't.

A memoir can be a collection of letters to your kids. It can be a series of short stories about the moments that shaped you. It can be answers to a list of questions your family asked. It can be voice recordings you make on your phone while driving to work.

The point isn't to create literature. The point is to preserve your story for the people who come after you. A handwritten letter about the day your daughter was born is worth more to her than any published book by a stranger.

If you want structure, start with something small. Write about one memory. Just one. The first day of a job. The moment you knew you loved someone. The worst meal you ever cooked. Don't worry about chronology or theme or narrative arc. Just get something down. You can always organize it later, or not. The raw material is what matters.

If you want more guidance on getting started, I wrote a step-by-step guide to writing a memoir that breaks the whole process into manageable pieces.

Start with what you're about to lose

If you're not sure where to begin, here's the advice that helped me most: start with whatever feels most urgent.

Is there a story only you know? Write that one first. Is there a person whose voice you can still hear in your head, but only barely? Write about them before the sound fades. Is there a period of your life that your kids always ask about? Start there.

You're not writing a book in order. You're rescuing things from the edge of being forgotten.

Some practical ways to get going:

The ten-minute rule. Set a timer. Write about one memory for ten minutes. Don't edit. Don't judge. Just write. Do this three times a week and you'll have a surprising amount of material within a month.
Record yourself talking. Some people are better talkers than writers. Use your phone. Tell a story the way you'd tell it to a friend over coffee. You can transcribe it later, or leave it as audio. Your grandchildren would probably rather hear your actual voice anyway.
Answer questions. Sit down with a list of prompts. What was your childhood home like? What did your parents do for work? What's the hardest decision you ever made? Writing your life story in the form of letters can make the whole thing feel less intimidating because you're writing to someone, not for an audience.
Carry a notebook. Memories surface at random. You'll be at the grocery store and suddenly remember the sound of your grandmother's screen door. Write it down. These fragments add up.

The gift you're actually giving

When you write your memoir, even a messy, incomplete, imperfect one, you're giving your family something money can't buy. You're giving them you. Not the version of you they see at holidays, but the real version. The scared version, the hopeful version, the version who made mistakes and learned from them and kept going.

I've read letters and stories from people's grandparents and great-grandparents, and they are always, without exception, treasured beyond anything else that person left behind. More than the house. More than the money. More than the china. The words are what people keep closest.

Your family doesn't need your story to be polished. They need it to exist. They need to know who you really were -- what you believed, what you feared, what made you laugh until you cried, what you'd do differently, and what you'd do exactly the same.

Stop waiting. Start small.

If you've read this far, the sign is probably already there. Maybe it's been there for a while. You don't need permission, and you don't need to be a writer. You just need to be willing to sit with your memories for a few minutes and put them somewhere they won't disappear.

Start tonight. One memory. One page. One voice recording on your phone. That's all it takes to begin.

And if you want a place to collect all of it -- your stories, your wishes, your messages to the people you love -- that's exactly what When I Die Files was built for. It's a simple, private space to leave behind the things that matter most, on your own terms, at your own pace. No rush. No pressure. Just a place for your words to live.