By Kerri Havnen Gordon

The other day while cleaning out a closet, I found a dusty 1970s tape recorder with a cassette tape inside. Soon I was sitting on the couch, riveted by the sound of my grandmother’s voice from 1973.

She and her sister regularly sent each other tapes in lieu of writing letters. Still, if she hadn’t spoken about the cancer that was quickly taking her away from us, I may not have recognized her voice.

It’s curious how the mind cements images, but sounds evaporate like morning mist. I could never forget how my grandma looked - her smooth skin, her quick smile, her strawberry blond hair. And I remember how she expertly moved about the kitchen or through the water in the lake. Her voice, though, was gone years ago.

I had the same experience regarding my parents. About two years after they died in 1975 when I was 13, I tried to conjure my dad’s voice and found, to my immense panic, that both their voices were completely lost to me. I could see my parents clear as day, but I could not, no matter how hard I tried, recall what they sounded like. There were many bad days in those years, many things to let go of. Having their voices go, too, was hard to take.

I thought of this as I listened to my grandmother talk about her cobalt treatments, her conversations with her doctor, the weakness she had little patience for. When she suddenly announced that Janine, Tom and Kerri were there and wanted to say hello, my pulse quickened.

My mom spoke for a few minutes and then my dad. It was unbelievable, but at first I barely recognized them. How odd it was to hear the distant voices of the two people who lovingly raised me and to find those voices only vaguely familiar. But the more I listened, the more I remembered the singsong quality of my mom’s voice and the captivating way my dad told a story. Ah, music to my ears.

My grandmother ended the tape by saying, “… Pray for me. I miss you and love you. Let’s hope to get together soon … Goodbye.” A loud click and a few seconds later, my grandfather’s voice came on. He said that he was getting by, not cooking really but heating things up, and that it was hard to get the chores done every day. He’d gotten the boat in just in time for the holiday, so it must have been late May or early June 1973. Grandma had died in March.

Even after 30 years, my parents and grandparents pop into my consciousness daily in small ways. My mom’s silver baby spoon resides in our sugar bowl. Any mention of golf brings my dad to mind, and my grandmother’s plate adorns our hutch. Little stories about each of them grace conversations. So while their voices are foggy, the essence of who they were remains clear.

I summoned my husband and sons to hear the voices of my grandmother, parents and me when I was 11 years old. They listened for a few minutes, more out of politeness than genuine interest, I think. Nonetheless, I loved sharing my parents’ voices with the grandchildren they never met.

It’s been a few days now, and I can still hear them. How delightful this is after so many years! Experience suggests that the restored voices will fade again over time and disappear altogether, but this doesn’t frighten me as it did all those years ago. What I’m left with is joy at bringing them into my living room, miraculously merging 1973 and 2005, and feeling grateful for it.