alexpgp | Treasure!

Though it's nothing you can take to the bank.

My mom had an immense collection of miscellaneous cassette tapes, with everything from home-rolled language lessons, to her playing the piano, to recordings of classical music from the radio, to I don't know what, literally. I say that because in pawing through one shoebox (that just happened to be in my old closet) for something to listen to while driving around, I ran across a cassette that, on one side, had "Light for [something illegible]" written on one side, and "grandmother" written on the other.

Since the writing is not mine, I surmised that this was a recording - or a copy of a recording - of my grandmother, speaking into a microphone as my mom prompted her with questions about her earlier life.

"Could it be?" I wondered.

I kid you not, my hands were literally shaking as fired up the player in the living room, checked the cassette drive, inserted the cassette, and hit the "Play" button.

It was her voice!

A voice that has been still now for more than three decades, yet still with the power to make tears well up like crazy, just as they're welling up now as I type this.

They are hybrid tears: part joy, for having found what I thought was lost; and part sadness, for having lost my grandmother.

What good fortune!

Cheers...