My OCD got sick and tired of seeing the big red “347” over
the Google Voice icon on my iPhone a few days ago. Yes, that means I had 347 new messages. Well, maybe “new” isn’t a good description
for them. Some of them were from 2011. Clearly, I hate voicemail.
But feeling under the weather and having nothing better to
do, I decided to log into my Google Voice account on a PC and undertake the
arduous task of cleaning it out. The
nice thing about Voice is that it attempts to transcribe the message for you so
you don’t have to actually listen to the crap. Any time I saw phrases like “trouble
with my Verizon phone you sold me” or “need someone to explain my bill”, I
could immediately delete. Productivity!
Then I saw a message from Norlina P. Simmons.
A message from my mom!
I played it. It was
her complaining, wondering why she bothers to leave voicemail when I never
check it. I guess she learned her
lesson, since this was the last message from her, and it was mid-2014. After that she became a texter.
But her voice—My God it was wonderful to hear her voice again.
I ceased cleaning out my voicemail and instead started searching for her
messages. There were many. She’d tell me she was sorry she “missed (my)
call, but (she) was in church” or that she “wanted to know if (I) was coming
over for breakfast” or if I wanted to go with Dad and her “to get a sandwich”. I
listened to every single one, all the way back to when I started using Google
for voicemail, back in ’11.
As I was going through them all, I noticed something. I hadn’t heard the words “I love you”. Mom and I had no qualms saying this to each
other—in fact we said it a lot—but I guess it wasn’t something we did much in
voicemail.
I kept playing message after message. I desperately wanted to hear it. Finally, I played a message from April 18th,
2012. It ended with:
“…checked my phone
and there you are! You called me. Okay, you’re okay. Love you! Bye.”
And, that’s when the waterworks started. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.
Shit. Why do I write this crap? It’s starting again.
Okay, the point of this essay isn’t to get all sappy. The point is this: That message was a
somewhat random voicemail where my mom was worried about me because (I guess)
we hadn’t been in touch. At the end, she
told me she loved me to end the message, and probably didn’t think much about
it after hanging up. And now it’s the
most important recording I have, and I plan on keeping it the rest of my
life.
Okay, THAT wasn’t the point either. That was what happened. THIS is the point: Tell your loved ones you
love them. All the time. Every time. Any
time you think of it. Because you never know if that random “I love you” will
be the last one you ever have to ability to give. Or receive.
I love you too, Mom.
