I’ve noticed a reluctance among Baby Boomers to write their life stories. Some are too busy living, adding new chapters to their lives, trying to find ways to remain young forever. All that is fine, but as a person who is facing many of the realities of old age now, I predict that many Boomers will get around to writing their life stories eventually. It’s never too early to begin.

It’s never too late, either. How about Mom, Dad, that favorite aunt or uncle or grandparent? You’ve probably heard their stories of growing up in the “old country,” their immigration tales, their stories of military service, love and loss, hardships and successes. You may have been a reluctant listener in your youth, but do you want those stories to die with their tellers? Why not help your older relatives to write or record their stories? As interest in genealogy increases, the younger generations will treasure those stories more.

Many people in their 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and beyond are still mentally alert, but the idea of writing may be foreign to them. However, oral storytelling is probably not. Get them talking. All you need are patience and a recording device. Try one of the new, small, inexpensive video cameras, or even an old-fashioned tape recorder. Or just listen and write down the stories yourself. Whether in book form, video, or cassette archives, your loved one’s stories can be preserved for the family.

Why bother? As I look back at my own departed family, I can see only one person clearly. My mother died last year at age 95, and she left her brief autobiography behind. A very brief excerpt appears here in my journal: “Violet Learns to Drive.” My mother and I were never especially close, and we lived far apart for all of my adult life. Still, by reading her life story (she painstakingly wrote it in longhand at age 86 and I transcribed it on my computer), I truly got to know her. I was able to incorporate parts of her story into my family tribute, “Remembering Violet,” last year. It’s a small family, but we all have both her little booklet, “My First 86 Years: A Midwestern Life,” and “Remembering Violet” to remember her by. I think she would be pleased.

I have no clear mental picture of my father. I describe him in a chapter of “Reinventing Myself” as an enigma. He not only didn’t write his life story; he didn’t even talk much, at least not to me. He died many years ago at age 70. How I wish I’d tried to get him talking during my rare visits during his short retirement years! He once told my brother a story about the difficulties of the drive between home (Whitewater, Wisconsin) and college (Northfield, Minnesota) in the late 1920’s in a Model-T Ford on unimproved roads. I wish I’d heard that story, and more. I have so many questions that he is not around to answer.

I’d love to know more about my Great Grandmother Harriet Bryant Uhl, who died long before I was born. Family legend had it that she was distantly related to the family of then well-known poet William Cullen Bryant, but much as I’d like to claim a poet in my background, research has turned up no evidence of a connection. To me, it seems more likely that Great Grandma made up that background to add dignity and importance to her role as a hard-working mother of eleven who migrated with her family from Pennsylvania to rural Iowa. I know she was a story teller through my own mother’s account of a story or two she was told as a child, but most of those stories have been lost.

There was a time when many people left their legacies in letters to family and friends. Those letters were often preserved to become their life stories. Few people write real “snail mail” letters these days, and email messages just cannot fill the same function. Perhaps blogs may, and the number of Elderbloggers is growing.

But meanwhile, you can help. Think of the joys of watching a video of Grandma playing with her grandchildren, or of Grandpa relating his military exploits to family members, complete with audience reactions. Do you want those stories and experiences to be lost? Write or record them before it’s too late.