Saved Messages

The night before last, another chapter into Hollis Gillespie's "Bleachy-Haired Honky Bitch," entitled "More Inner Evil," I read a sentence in which the author was pondering the irony and sudden death of a total stranger who, along with his girlfriend, was shot in a robbery on his way to the same party while people inside shared moments of drunken affection... She wrote, "Did he stop, contemplate his life, know that he was loved? Did he leave phone messages for his friends who now agonize over having erased them because they didn't know they would never hear his voice or see his face again?..." I hung on to that last sentence.

Blink, blink, blink... The message indicator on my answering machine flashes at me as I walk in the door. A bold, red "20" blinks off, on, off, on... I try to count in my head the calls I neglected to answer the night before, whose messages I'd already heard as they were left, trying to determine if there might be a new one and if I was really that curious to begin with. One of those 'going through the motion' kind-of things.

Of course there aren't twenty new messages - only three really... the rest are fragmented pieces of memories that I just haven't been strong enough to erase.

Like the sound of my grandmother's shaky voice rambling on and on as if I were actually on the phone (she never has understood the concept of answering machines), telling me how much she missed me and how she'll love me always, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck... and I miss being her little girl.

Like the tears of joyous surprise and humbled gratitude from one of my hero's, a local mentor and advocate for persons with disabilities, just after she had been handed a copy of the powerfully emotional letter of commendation that I had written of her to her boss's boss's boss's boss, the president of The Arc of the United States, published in the Arc's national publication. And I cried too when I heard her choked up voice say, "This is why I do what I do. Thank you. Thank you. You made my day, my week, you made my life..." and I still cry every time I hear it and I still wanna be her when I grow up.

Like the heartfelt message from my dear cousin, Greg, before he boarded a plane back to Texas in 2002, the last time I saw him after 5 long years... telling me how much he enjoyed our time, how much he's always loved me, how I've always been his favorite... Time always stands still for us.

Even the ex-boyfriend who shagged his aunt (before the shaggin'), calling me "precious" and laughing because I had duped him with a prank phone call, telling me he loved me and how he would miss me while he was away on the weekend he sent me roses.

Like my Puerto Rican sister from the days of Deutschland, wishing us a Feliz Año Nuevo for 2003, recalling the years we celebrated with fireworks and champagne on the old bridge and called our families back in the states 6 hours early to ring in the new year. God how I miss her.

Even the ex-finace, with his adorable British accent, wishing my daughter a happy birthday in 2004, telling us he loved us and missed us and would be home soon... a year before he married someone else.

Like the German melody of Toto's voice, informing me that he had arrived safely back in the motherland, how he thought of me as he passed Kitzingen on the autobahn heading home and that he would miss me, his dear friend.

I suppose that's the very reason I still use this dinosaur of a phone. I just can't bear the thought of never hearing those voices again.

Even the ones that hurt.

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"The Soul is the voice of the body's interests."
--George Santayana, The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense, 1906