“I am, maybe, the last man who knows the story of that place.
There are things I remember that no one else does.
And I am the only one left who remembers some people.
Once I am gone, there will be no memory of them left anywhere.”
— Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow
Jayber Crow is the central character in Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow—the barber of the fictional town of Port William and its quiet, lifelong observer.
This quote is more than the fictional lament of a barber in a fading town. It’s a mirror held up to what’s happening quietly across the working world today.
Across industries and communities, something essential is slipping away—mostly unnoticed, rarely named.
The people who remember how things really worked—the ones who kept the rhythm, passed down the know-how, carried the company in their bones—are leaving. And with them, something irreplaceable is going, too.
Not just skill.
Not just labor.
But the living memory of how the work was held—with care, with context, with history.
Long-tenured employees—some with decades of experience, much of which has never been written down—are stepping away. Some are retiring. Others are bowing out as the pace and nature of work change around them. In many cases, they’re being replaced—if at all—by younger hires who bring energy but lack context, or by systems that replicate function without memory.
And slowly, quietly, a different kind of gap is forming:
A knowledge gap. A memory gap. A human gap.
The Quiet Pattern Playing Out Everywhere
There’s a quiet kind of knowing that never makes it into the handbook. It lives in people, often the ones who’ve been there the longest. The ones who know where the old wiring runs through the walls, what the customers really mean when they say “no rush,” and why that one machine always hums a little off after a storm.
They don’t interrupt meetings with it. They don’t start sentences with, “Well, back in my day…”
They just know. And they carry that knowing like a tool they’ve sharpened over the years—never flashy, but always ready when the time calls for it.
And they’re leaving.
In small businesses and warehouses, in offices and shops across the country, a quiet pattern plays out almost every day. A longtime employee turns in their notice. Retirement, relocation, reorganization—it doesn’t matter. The calendar fills with exit checklists: turn in keys, clean out desk, forward emails.
But no one schedules time to ask:
What do you know that we don’t?
What lives in your memory that we’ve never written down?
What would we lose if we didn’t ask you to tell us?
The departure is often cordial, professional, and efficient. But what’s left behind is a slow erosion—a subtle unmooring. Because that person didn’t just do a job, they carried a lived understanding of the company, the customers, and the history, passed down through repetition, not instruction.
And when they walk out the door, that thread of continuity goes with them.
Let Us Remember Now, While We Still Can
If there’s still time—and in many places, there is—we need to become stewards of memory, not just managers of labor. Not because we’re afraid of the future, but because we respect the past enough to carry it forward.
How?
Not with urgent checklists or one-off interviews, but with a posture of reverence. Acknowledging that knowing is not something we extract—it’s something we are invited into.
Here are a few ways to begin—small, quiet acts of preservation:
Sit and Listen.
Pull aside a longtime employee. Ask them what they know that no one ever asks about. Record it if you can. But more importantly, be present for it. These aren’t just facts—they’re the story of how the work became what it is.
Pair the Young with the Wise.
Create mentorships not just for skills but for memory. Let a younger worker shadow an elder. Let them feel the rhythm, not just read the steps. That transfer doesn’t happen by accident.
Capture the Unwritten.
Start a shared document, folder, or notebook called “Things We Know.” Add to it freely. Invite people to share things they’ve learned that aren’t in the SOP. You’ll be surprised what surfaces when you ask.
Honor the Knowledge.
When someone retires, do more than give them a card. Give them a microphone—or a pen. Let them leave behind more than an HR file. Let them leave a blessing on the work.
Wendell Berry reminds us that when the last one who remembers leaves, it isn’t just a person we lose—it’s the living memory of a place, a company, a craft.
Let’s not wait for that day to pass unnoticed.
Let us ask now.
Let us listen.
Let us remember.
While we still can.