THE WIND PHONE
Birthday Wishes From The Grave
The weirdness of listening to voicemails from the dead
October 15th was my 56th birthday. I had a lovely day with my husband, which included gifts at 5 a.m., a flat tire, a great lunch, and a dentist appointment for his impromptu toothache.
Then I listened to the dead people voicemails.
I sat on my sofa, reflected on my increasing years, and thought about my mother. I wished she and my sister were here to celebrate with me.
Then the light bulb went off. I have a few of their voicemails.
I went into my Yahoo account and quickly scrolled to the folder Mom & Robin VM. I downloaded each one carefully, and as they played, a tiny slice of my memory opened.
I enjoyed the humorous sound of my sister singing “Happy Bird Day.” Bird is her nickname, and she thought this was 1,000 times funnier than it was. No matter how old we were, we both had a perpetual age of 12, so I’d always laugh at the dumb bird joke.
Next, I had the sweet but sad birthday salutations from my mother. At this point, she was deep in the throes of Alzheimer’s, and the message was one month before my actual birthday. Why she chose September 10th as my birthday eludes me, but so does that whole…
