What to write in the card
The gift is unusual, so the card does more work than usual. Here is what tends to land, and what tends to make people refuse.
Keep it short, make it about wanting to hear them rather than about time running out, and say clearly that they do not have to decide anything today. "I would like to hear about your life properly, and I have asked someone to help us do it" is enough. Avoid anything that sounds like a memorial.
Why the card matters more here
Most presents explain themselves. This one does not.
What the person is being handed is not an object, it is an invitation to spend several hours talking about themselves, which for a certain generation is an unfamiliar and slightly alarming proposition. How you frame it in three sentences decides whether the first reaction is pleasure or resistance.
The two things the card has to do: make clear that you want to hear it, and make clear that nothing is required of them today.
Three that work
Adapt them, do not copy them. Yours will be better because it sounds like you.
Dad, I realised I have never properly asked you about your life, and I would like to. No rush, and nothing to do today. Whenever you are ready, we will sit down and you can talk.
We would like to hear your story in your own words, and have it written down for all of us. Amanda does this for a living, so you do not have to write a thing. All you have to do is talk.
Happy 80th. This is a set of conversations rather than a thing, because you have quite enough things. We would like to hear about all of it, properly, and to keep it.
What not to write
Anything about time running out. “Before it is too late” is the honest reason many families do this, and it is the worst possible thing to put on a card. It makes the gift about death rather than about interest.
“Your legacy.” It sounds like a will.
“Your amazing life.” Flattery raises the bar so high that the person immediately feels they cannot clear it. The point is that ordinary lives are worth writing down.
A deadline. “We have booked the first session for the 14th” turns a present into an appointment.
Anything that implies the family has discussed them behind their back, even though you have. “We all agreed you should” is the sentence that gets refused.
What to say when they open it
Usually less than you think. The instinct is to explain the whole thing, and it comes out sounding like a pitch.
Try, roughly: “There is no rush at all. Have a think about it.”
Then stop talking. Let them ask the questions.
Expect them to say it is a fuss, that nobody wants to hear about them, and that they have nothing to tell. That is the standard opening and it is not a refusal. When they say there is nothing to tell covers what actually gets past it.
If they seem unsure on the day
Leave it.
The conversation that goes well is the one they have had two weeks to get used to. Pushing on the day, in front of the rest of the family, is the reliable way to get a no that then becomes a position they have to defend.
Come back to it privately, one to one, a fortnight later. Most of the time the answer has changed.
If they say no and mean it
That is theirs to decide, and it is worth respecting on the first attempt rather than the third.
If it comes to that, the gift can quietly become something else: an afternoon with a phone and a few questions, with no book and no project attached. Quite often the book follows anyway, once nobody is asking for it.
I conduct every conversation myself, and I write every story myself. Nothing is handed off. Read about Amanda→