Every voice belongs to you

A comment from BHM reminded me of something that I had to share. Sometimes I am amazed at how many things I forget until someone mentions them; maybe that's my mind's self-defense system, being forgetful. Whatever, I'll take it -- though it is good to remember some things, just so I can share them with others who might find the information useful in some way.

For several weeks after Marina died, I became obsessed with hearing her voice again, with the thought that I never would hear it. I loved her voice -- it was deep, like mine, and because most of her jobs involved working on the phone, she had spent a lot of time making sure she spoke clearly and sounded professional. It also always had a bit of a smile to it, like she was always ready to say something funny.

So when she was gone, I got desperate to hear her just one more time. I listened to all our voice mail messages; unfortunately, there was nothing left -- I kicked myself in the butt when I remembered deleting a bunch of messages that had been saved, not long before. I listened to my cell phone's saved message; nothing there. I remembered that I still had a couple of tapes from an old answering machine, and started listening to them, bringing up all kinds of old memories -- none of them her, though, until I got to the end of one and heard her plaintive, 14-year-old voice, saying, "Mom? Mom? Is that you?" over an automated telemarketer call that the phone had picked up before she had gotten to the other extension. All that did was remind me of all the times I had not been home with her when I should have been -- when her father and I were ready to end our relationship, and I was staying late at work just to avoid having to deal with him. Of course, all that did was make me more miserable.

And then one day, a few weeks after her death, I got a call from work to check my email, that something important had been sent to me. I brought up the email and there was an audio file attached. I opened it and was stunned to hear Marina's voice, her clear and professional one, greeting callers at the place we had both worked -- she for a few years as the phone operator, me there still -- she was giving the hours and location and listing the services and all that. I remembered how she had practiced the script over and over to get it just right. She sounded very proud of herself.

And I cried and cried, and thanked my friend Rich, who was in charge of the phone system and who, as her boss, had ridden her butt mercilessly and was one of the reasons she ended up being fired, but who had really come through in this instance. He had known her since she was 8 years old (probably one of the reasons he was so tough on her, he treated her like family) and this was recorded when she was 21. He said that he did the same thing I did, started going through all the old tapes trying to find something with her voice, and was stunned when he found it. It had been several years after she had left the place, and it had never been recorded over even though all the phone tapes had been re-done. He had one of the secretaries make a recording on her computer so he could send it to me.

I only listened to it one other time -- I haven't been able to do it again, it makes me too sad, but I am glad to know that I have it now, safe and secure, and can listen to it any time I want.

In the weeks that followed, I received a video tape with a couple of short clips of Marina on it, taken by my partner's parents when they had come to visit. She's smiling and happy, and I can barely hear her, but she's there. And I got a couple of DVDs from one of my brothers, the one who always had the video camera at any gathering -- both of these were taken at birthday parties of my father's; in one, Marina was probably a year old, and so cute and curious and stubborn, walking off as fast as she could manage when a cousin called to her. The other was when she was 16, at another of Grandpa's birthday parties -- her bright purple hair hidden under a red beret so grandpa wouldn't see it; she and her cousin Tony were drinking beer and goofing off in front of the camera. As annoying as that was, I was glad to see it, and to remember.

And every voice belongs
Every voice belongs to you...