My dad passed away in January 2000, he was 53. My Grandfather died of a heart attack when he was 52. My dad, unbeknownst to me, had told many close family friends that he would not live past 52…and his self-fulfilling prophecy came true almost. My dad did live a very very full life before passing…he was a millionaire several times over, started a couple of successful telecom companies, traveled extensively, bought all the lamborghinis, BMW M1s he wanted…blah, blah, blah.
The one thing that is most important to me is that he lived so much in his 53 years. Another is that I have tapes from my answering machine with his voice on it! Messages from when he would call me and just tell me he loves me, or messages discussing our luncheon plans, etc. These are so precious to me, more than anything else.
I am lucky to also have a ton of slides from family vacations, when I was younger, and some movies that are reel-to-reel.
I miss my dad and I love being able to hear his voice. I hope that everyone that has lost a special loved one has a piece of them that is special.
Does anyone else have a recorded image and voice of a loved one that is so precious to them?
Once, while visiting home, I waited for Dad to sit back in his favorite chair and put a cassette machine on the table next to him (hey, it was 1981). After a short while the machine became ignored and he settled back to talk history; when radio was first installed in airplanes he got a job as dispatch for American Airways, staying employed in the Depression, the first time he met Mom, the rainy night marriage from a wheezy old preacher who was sick and couldn’t get out of bed (the marriage was in his bedroom, his wife was a witness).
The tape was an afterthought.
Now it’s a treasure.
My mom died when I was seven and she had many journals and Other writings… I can’t bring myself to look at them… Just seeing her handwriting brings me to tears. I sometimes cry not only because I miss her but because I can’t remember her voice in any other way other than her screaming my full name when she was pissed. I think I’m mostly pissed… She was taken in her prime, and I Seven years old, Not yet ready to be left by myself… and since I refused to live with my father, I got to live with my grandparents… We then moved from california to Ohio… I now am embarrassed to say that I’ve only seen her grave twice… during the funeral and once after…
I think what I regret most was never saying goodbye or telling her how much I love her. She left on vacation with some friends… then while on their way back home they were changing lanes and they had to check the boat they were towing along and as they changed lanes, the truck infront of them changed lanes as well, crashing into the tail of the truck… my mother suffered severe internal damage and the driver got a bump to the head and a small scratch… but I guess the only thing one can say is… shit happens…
ANYWHO… while going through her belongings, a five dollar bill was found in her purse… That five dollar bill has yet to be removed from her wallet
shortly before my grandfather died (Granddaddy B.B.) he and my mom called me up at work to wish me happy birthday, and got my voicemail. They sang “Happy Birthday” on it and said a few kind words. I never erased that voicemail. Later, when I was laid off from that company, I managed to record the voicemail onto a microcassette, which I still have. I don’t think my mom knows about it. I’ll share it with her one of these days.
Granddaddy B.B. had a full, rich, deep speaking and singing voice. It’s wonderful to be able to still hear it.
My parents have a cassette from the early 70’s. It has recordings of me on it. My dad sat me down at 2 month intervals or so, and recorded whatever it was I said. That tape has my parents’ voices on it, but also the voices of my maternal grandparents, who died in 1984 and 1985 respectively.
You know, this made me think. I really should get around to putting that tape on a digital audio source. Hmmm. If I hook up my old stereo (my new one doesn’t have a tape deck) to my PC, I should be able to record a huge-ass MP3, right? It’s one of those 120 minute tapes.
Before my Dad died in 1996, my sister and I sat him down and “forced” him to record a tape for us.
Throughout our growing up years, Dad would always sing the first line of an apparently “bawdy” song, something like “Pull The Shades Down, Mary-Anne”, or “Papa was at the cathouse, he’s now in the doghouse”, you get the idea. Every time he’d start one of those songs, my mom would sharply say: “Les! The kids!” He’d wink at us and stop.
Well, on that fateful day in 1995, with Dad dying of esophageal cancer, he sang my sister and I those songs. Complete, unedited, and on cassette! Yes, his voice was weak, but we have them.
Sis and I have joked for years about putting out a book of those lyrics, called “Daddy’s Dumb Ditties.” I think maybe we should!
And yes, I do get a little emotional hearing that tape.
My grandmother used to make peanut butter cookies for all us grandchildren. They were the absolute best. Nothing was like these cookies. Well, when I was in college and my grandmother’s health was just starting to deteriorate, I stopped by to have dinner with her and make those peanut butter cookies. It was the last time she made cookies for me (though I did most of the work). I recorded the recipe and whenever my wife makes them, I know I have a little piece of my grandmother with me.
Probably an obvious caveat, but make sure EVERYTHING is clean and demagnetized. Just a little grime on the capstans and pinch rollers has wreaked pure havoc on some of the stuff I’d intended to transfer from my original cassettes (nothing archival, thank God…).
I taped a phone conversation with my Mom a few years ago—nothing special, just us chatting for 30 minutes or so about what we did that day, the weather, what’s on TV. I thought I would like to have it for after she’s no longer here—but I know that after she is gone, I’ll never be able to bring myself to listen to it. I have a hard time even reading old letters from dead friends.
I have my wedding video in which both my parents speak. I’m divorced now but kept the video so I would be able to see mom and dad when I want to. The first time was really hard but I felt I needed to connect with them. That tape is something I’ll never get rid of. My dad gave me a kiss and it was filmed and it’s very close to my heart.
I have recordings of my maternal grandfather and my paternal grandmother telling me some of their history. Taped interviews, really - I was kind of a novice at it so I kept asking questions instead of letting them just ramble on, but I have at least a half-hour of their voices still with me. I haven’t played the tape of my grandmother in a while, but I played Granddad’s tape recently - which I’m glad I did, because as I listened to it I came to realize I’d forgotten what his voice sounded like. So I’m glad I have them.
I was extremely blessed to have all four of my grandparents at my wedding. All of them spoke on the video, which I still have. Three of them are no longer with us (indeed, my wedding was the last time I saw my paternal grandfather). There are other relatives and friends on that tape who are no longer with us as well.
Likewise, I have several tapes that I shot of my (maternal) grandfather, including one of him playing with my oldest son (he didn’t survive to see any of my other children), and another of his surprise 70th birthday party.
My wife has a tape of her grandmother (who passed away in 1979) singing lullabyes to her and her sister.
Sort of different, but I was given my father’s computer after he died. I was rummaging around looking for a diskette and found a bunch with his very distinctive handwriting on them. It was like being hit with a hammer.
My mother used to call and leave suicide messages on my answering machine. I meant to take at least one of them off and put a dance beat to it but never did and have since lost the most recent one.
I guess that voodoo doll of her is still working somewhere.
Not very lovingly yours,
A Demon Plaything
PS. I told my mom to stop calling ages ago. I guess she is alright since no one told me she died yet.
my old man’s voice was on mom and dads answereing machine. it freaked my sister out when she would call my mom and hear dad’s voice, so i redid the message with my voice, now dooming me to a certain death, im sure.
lifes hard on the men-folk in my family. my sister, mom and grandmother are all widows, my uncle, dad and oldest brother have all died. grandpa on moms side died before i was born!
A few years ago, I remember hearing about some guy in Europe, who claimed to have made recordings of the voices of long-dead people. I think his name was Radich or Ruvich. Anyway, the story goes, he left his tape recorder on in “record” mode, and when he replyed the tape, he had the voice of Adolf Hitler on it?
Anybody know anything about this?
I was closing out an old ISP account last thursday and discovered that the isp had at some point restored that account from an older backup- restoring a bunch of email messages from my mom, who died two years ago.
I’ve saved them, and backed them up on my dat drive. I could only read the first couple.
I have videos of her from various family event things, weddings/graduations/etc. I keep meaning to digitize them, clean them up, burn them to dvd to give to my siblings, but it’s too soon, I can only get through about 5 minutes at a time before I’m pretty much useless to the world for a good hour or so.
My dad died my freshman year in college. That would be back in '82. About ten years latter I was helping my mom clean out some closets and I came across the family slides and three 8mm films. I had seen the slides many times but I never knew we had film.
My mom explained that we didn’t have a camera but our neighbors from when I was a year old (and still close friends) had a movie camera and they took some of me. So I take the reels and have them put on video.
I watch the first one and it is apparently my first bithday. We see all my brothers and sisters and all the neighbors kids having a great time. My dad isn’t in the picture because he is in the USAF and is stationed far away where they don’t take familes. The next film is just pictures of snow. Snow snow snow. Snow on hills. Snow on flat ground. A german shepard in the snow. Then there is a shot of a man in a parka. He walks toward the camera and pulls back his hood and it’s my dad. He smiles and waves and the film ends.
I find out later that they sent him the camera so he could shoot some film of himself.
I wonder that tape is.
