The Google Voice messages you left all those months ago still remain. I listened to them a few nights ago, overcome with glee. You will never be gone! The best surprise I’ve had in the five months since you passed.

The message was about Lisa’s baby shower last summer. Those damn lollipops that you just had to get. They came in the wrong shade of pink. You were ready to return them to Amazon but you didn’t know how. In classic Amy style, that message lasted an entire minute. You spoke until the beep made you stop. Those messages are like mini conversations you would have on the phone as if my response was never neccesary. Who knew something so simple like a voice message would become so important.

In ten years from now, when I speak to your granddaughter I can take out my phone. Point to it and be like “Aubree, listen it’s your grandmother, wasn’t she amazing.” That awful New York accent that 20 years in Florida couldn’t get rid of. You would elongate my name, “Megannn,” when it was important; or simply “Call your mom,” when it wasn’t.

You did this to everyone. From your friends to your husband to your mother, no one safe from your long messages and obnoxious accent. We were the lucky ones, the chosen ones to be apart of your life and the unfortunate ones who were left to pick up the pieces.

In the digital world, I will always have those Facebook posts that you were so proud of. You know the ones were you uploaded a picture for the first…and only time. And when you had my baby sister post your statuses for you and then claim you did it yourself. The internet is a trove of what you were: boisterous, caring and most of all loving.

Now you’re gone. You were stubborn. A nurse by trade made you a pain in the ass for every doctor who ever came in contact with you. “They don’t know what they are talking about,” you would say at every hospital. Until they did. They say the Lupus killed you. But we all know you simply gave up. Tired of the pricks, the nicks, the bleeding, the pain. It all became too much.

We held a celebration in your honor a few days after you passed. Traci and I wore red. We know you would have approved. There was food, talking and reminiscing.

The group of fifty of us realized that you made us all feel special. The phone wasn’t just a communication tool, it was your lifeline. “She never sounded sick,” we all said to each other. It’s true. You didn’t.

On the phone you took an interest in our lives while never mentioning your own. The pain came secondary to the latest Rachael Ray recipie that dad would have to make and how it was to die for! You lived your life in hyperboles while we live them in Upworthy headlines. I will always have those voicemails…and half of your DNA.