Some people write a letter to their family and put it in a drawer. Researchers wanted to know who actually gives theirs away, and when.
Researchers Interviewed 16 People Who Had Already Written Their Family a Legacy Letter. More Than Half Were Still Waiting to Give It to Them.
Sarah Neller and colleagues at the University of Utah interviewed 16 older adults, mean age 72.3, who had already written a legacy letter: a private document of values, life lessons, and love for the people who come after them. Published in 2026 in the Journal of Applied Gerontology, the study found something the researchers had not expected. Writing the letter was the easy part. Giving it away was not.
A legacy letter is not a will. It carries no property and settles no estate. It is, in one participant's words, **a tangible gift of intangible value: a letter, a book, a photo collage, sometimes a quilt or a small keepsake box, holding the things a person most wants the next generation to carry.** Sarah Neller and her team at the University of Utah wanted to know what actually happens once someone decides to make one.
So they sat down with 16 people who had already done it, most in their seventies, and asked them to walk through the whole process: what pushed them to start, who they pictured reading it, what they chose to say, and what happened after it was finished. **The motivation was almost always the same: a brush with aging, a loss, or a milestone that made someone feel the window was closing.**
The last step is where the study found its sharpest divide. **Only 43.8 percent, seven of the sixteen, had actually handed their letter to someone while they were still alive to see it opened.** The rest were still waiting: for the right moment, for enough nerve, or for their own funeral to do the giving for them.
1. Writing it down was never the hard part
Every person in the study finished their letter. Nobody in the sample described the writing itself as the obstacle. **Once someone decided what mattered enough to say, saying it took a weekend, or a few quiet evenings, not years.**
The categories the researchers found were almost universally the same: values, life lessons, family history, and unconditional love, written mostly for children and grandchildren. **The letter, once it existed, was rarely the problem. Delivering it was.**
Sixteen people finished the hardest sentence. Fewer than half ever said it out loud to the person it was for.
2. The wait that can outlive the writer
Some participants had a plan: hand it over at a birthday, a graduation, a holiday table. Others had written the letter and simply did not know how to start the conversation that would put it in someone's hands. **A few had decided, on purpose, that it should only be opened after they were gone.**
That choice is understandable. It is also the one the researchers kept circling back to: **a letter given after death can never be discussed, questioned, or answered. The person who wrote it does not get to watch it land, or hear what it meant.**
A letter opened at a funeral says everything it was written to say. It just cannot hear the answer.
3. What a phone call can do that a letter cannot
A written legacy letter is a one-way conversation, chosen and edited in advance, said once and then left to speak for itself. **A phone call is not. It can be interrupted, asked back to, laughed at, corrected. It can happen more than once.**
Ari calls and asks the kind of question a legacy letter tries to answer in a single draft, values, lessons, the story behind them, except it happens now, in a real conversation, while the person telling it can still hear how it landed. **Nobody has to work up the nerve to hand anything over. The conversation is the gift, and it arrives while everyone is still there for it.**
A legacy letter waits for the right moment. A phone call can just start.
My mother had been talking about writing us a letter for two years and it never happened, the blank page was too big. Ari just asked her, one question at a time, over a few calls. Now we have more of her voice than any letter would have held.Renee, 44, recording her mother's stories on Ari
What you get with LifeScribe
- A 2026 University of Utah study interviewed 16 older adults who had already written a legacy letter. Fewer than half had ever given it to their family while they were alive to see it received.
- The letter itself was never the hard part. Deciding when, and having the nerve, to hand it over was.
- A phone call cannot replace a written letter, but it does not wait for the perfect moment either. It can just happen.
- Built on documented research: Neller, Cloyes, Edelman, Wong, Baines, and Towsley, 2026, Journal of Applied Gerontology.
Start free, with nothing to lose
Try it on your next call with a parent or grandparent, free. Nothing to write, nothing to hand over later. If nothing comes out that you had not heard before, you have lost only a few minutes of a call you could be having anyway.
**A legacy letter can sit in a drawer for years waiting for the right moment.** A phone call does not have that luxury, and it does not need it. The right moment to ask is simply the next one you get.
Do not let the letter you meant to give someday stay a letter you never gave at all.
Ari calls and asks the questions a legacy letter tries to answer alone, so the values and stories inside it get said out loud, heard, and kept, while there is still time to hand them over.
Questions grandparents ask us
What did the study actually find?
Neller, Cloyes, Edelman, Wong, Baines, and Towsley (2026, Journal of Applied Gerontology) interviewed 16 community-dwelling older adults, mean age 72.3, who had already created a legacy of values, commonly a legacy letter. Only 43.8 percent had shared it with their intended recipient while still alive; the rest planned to share it later or after their death.
What is a legacy letter?
A legacy letter, also called a legacy of values, is a nonlegal document, often a letter but sometimes a book, photo collage, or keepsake box, meant to pass on values, life lessons, and love to the next generation. It carries no legal weight and settles no estate.
Why did so many people wait to give it away?
Participants described uncertainty about timing, difficulty starting the conversation, or a deliberate choice to have it opened only after death. The researchers noted that this last option means the writer never gets to see the letter received or discuss what it meant.
Does this mean writing a legacy letter is not worth it?
No. Every participant in the study finished their letter and recommended the process to others. The finding is about delivery, not value: the letter itself was rarely the hard part.
How is a phone call different from a legacy letter?
A legacy letter is written once and delivered, if it is delivered, as a finished document. A phone call is a live conversation that can be asked back to, clarified, and repeated, so the values and stories it carries do not have to wait for one perfect, final moment.
https://getlifescribeapp.com/blog/more-than-half-were-still-waiting