Voices from Afar

On Father's Day my family had a picnic. I was flying to Panama so I obviously was not in Pennsylvania at the picnic, but my uncle Mike took some video and posted it on his facebook page. For the past few minutes I've sat here and listened to it. Not so much watched as listened. Listening to people talking and people laughing. To be honest, when I think about family picnics the first thing that I actually think about is people's voices. Usually so many people are talking at once that you can't figure out what conversation is going on where...that is unless you were actually born in this family and then it's really obvious because you've been doing this all your life. And there are so many people running in and out of each conversation that you lose track of who said what. And so I sat there and listened. I listened to the voices that I miss so much, and the laughs that make me laugh just to hear them.

There was one voice and one laugh that I didn't hear. It's not that I expected to hear it as if as I was watching the video I thought suddenly my mom would be there. But the sound of the picnic just didn't seem right without it. But then why would it?

I never noticed how much you miss a person's voice until I wanted so desperately to hear my mom. I wanted to hear her say anything. We watched videos just waiting for there to be a place she talked. We called her old cell phone waiting for it to go to voicemail so we could hear her say her name. We have an old answering machine message that I have copied onto my phone and sometimes I just listen to it pretending it's not one of the only links to that voice I have. It doesn't really matter what she is saying, just hearing her voice is enough.

It's interesting I think how so often we go through life not noticing our senses other than sight. Sitting here and listening to the picnic with my eyes closed, listening to these voices I know so well, laughs I could pick out of a crowd, reminds me that not every moment is based on what you see...sometimes it's based on what you hear.