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What is your earliest memory?

Mine takes place in Houston, Texas, on a warm autumn night in 1994, when I am probably around three years old. I am too young to even know what humidity feels like. I am too young, and my memory too hazy now, to remember the cicadas buzzing in the background. I am being carried by my dad on an evening walk around our neighborhood. We sit down and he points up, and my eyes follow his finger to a full moon. He gives me a sip from a can of Sprite, and I remember wincing as the fizzy sweetness burns my tender mouth. The full moon. The taste of Sprite. The stars. That is my first memory.

What is yours, dear reader? Try recalling it for a moment, if you have one to spare. When was the last time you traveled back in time?

They say Alzheimer's is the cruelest disease, and it is easy to see why. Decades of small joys, emotional connections, past loves, ghosts, music, and smells, one by one fading into an empty slate.

Our lives are a collection of memories and stories. Memories sustain us. They bring us joy, love, anger, and sadness. More than bones, more than flesh, memories are what make us human. They are the fabric of the rich, interconnected tapestry of humanity.

There are the memories and stories of the people we love. There are the memories we have never known. The story of our mom's first kiss. The boiled eggs our dad used to carry in his lunchbox as a kid. And our parents' grandmothers: what lives did they lead? What did they bicker over at the dinner table? What were their hopes and dreams?

If you could speak to your mother and your grandmother when they were both your age, what secrets would you tell them? What secrets would they tell you?

What were their joys, their fears, their hopes? What music did they listen to when they needed their spirits lifted? Where did they go when they needed a quiet moment to themselves?

We all carry someone like this. A grandmother who held our hand on the walk to the supermarket. A grandfather who taught us to bet patiently, then big, when playing cards. The things we know about them, we know well: a feeling, a gesture, a taste. But what about everything we never thought to ask?

We may never know.

Before it's too late, we must begin saving the memories of those we love.

Not for public consumption. Not as static data. But for ourselves, and for the people who love them. To hold onto what is most sacred. To keep our precious moments bound together.

Ember's mission is to preserve, share, and create lasting memories.

We want people to turn their memories into beautiful stories, artifacts, and art.

Our mission is deeply personal, one that first spoke to us like the ghosts of our ancestors and, it turns out, has always spoken to us.

We hope it can become yours as well.

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

— Joan Didion

“We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.”

— Louise Glück

“Into the caverns of tomorrow with just our flashlights and our love / We must plunge, we must plunge, we must plunge”

— Bright Eyes