Record your grandpa telling that story again. One day you’ll pay anything to hear him start it.

A voice is the first thing to go and the thing people miss hardest. Faces survive in photographs, but the pacing, the laugh in the wrong place, the way somebody always begins the same story: that lasts only if someone records it. The repetition making you roll your eyes now is exactly the part you would want later.

Open the voice memo app next time an older relative starts one of theirs. It does not need to be a production. If the people you would record are already gone, ask someone else in the family for their version.