Your grandma’s stories are a library that closes someday. Sit down and check some out.

Everything an older relative knows about your family sits in one place and is written down nowhere. The stories feel permanently available because they always have been, and you assume a better afternoon is coming, with more time and sharper questions. What is finite is the number of afternoons, not the number of stories.

Ask one specific question rather than inviting them to tell you everything. What their first job was, what the house was like, who they loved before. Record it on your phone if they do not mind, and let the conversation wander from there.