A Hundred Veiled Voices

I’ve had voices in my head all week. 

It started with the funeral of my friend’s brother, a man I didn’t know but quickly grew to respect.  After all, there aren’t many people who sing the closing hymn at their own funerals.  His booming, emotion-tinged voice filled that place with reverent silence, followed by a standing ovation.  That same voice has been resonating in my head ever since.

Last night, as I drifted in the in-between, waiting for Allison to come home from a volleyball game in Omaha, other voices seemed to float from their graves, landing softly on my pillow.  First was my dad’s, his cackling laugh conjuring up images of long-ago stories well told.  Naturally, his laugh led me to the hearty guffaws of my brother, Mike, who shared my dad’s robust way of living.

 In cluttered formation came a dozen others, eager to rise from the dust, each distinct yet fleeting.  Suddenly, my head was filled with strange snippets, polaroids from days and people long gone:  Mindy, a Yearbook student cut short by leukemia, her slightly nasal voice touched up with humor;  Jerry, a long-ago boyfriend, also shot down by cancer,  his voice wavering between this place and another; Sarah’s throaty, low voice, her laugh immediately recognizable, long ago buried by Idaho snows on Christmas morning.

I thought of my grandpa, the gentle, lumbering man whose photo adorns my Facebook page.  But I could not quite find his voice, tucked away in the pocket of his well-made suit coat.  And I realized how many voices I’d lost over the years.  Lives replaced by Gaussian-blurred memories, voices silenced by time. 

Just as I began to mourn all those voices recorded in outdated, unreliable formats, I heard the familiar tinny groan of the backdoor, a harbinger of a daughter returned.  Minutes later, I was blanketed by her strong, lean body, her whispering voice regaling me with stories of rude boys, lunch-time tests, bus rides to Omaha, the air filled with the voices of chittering girls, laughter exploding like fireworks against the highway.