voices.

when a person dies - it's the sound of their voice that you miss the most.

it's the knowledge that you'll never hear them speak again. there are always photographs and stories but i never thought to pull out my recorder to capture the sound of their voice. that's the hardest.

death is the real heartbreaker. sure, heartbreak can occur when a relationship ends or you are misled, but it's different. even if you continue to love that person, there is still the hope that you'll run into them one day and can see them, feel them, hear them even if you can't be with them. then of course, you either move on or you don't. (chances are you fall in love again). but death - it takes something from you that cannot be replaced. you know that the person you loved is no longer breathing your same air or staring at your same sky.
they aren't here anymore.

my great-grandfather's voice sounded like coffee. a coffee drinkin' prophet.
it seemed like he had legs of iron - ironic because one was fake, a result of an overprotective mother cow. he was coffee in thin china cups, cowboy hats and long prayers. his hands were marked with age spots and he had the strongest grip. he died the day after i got back from spending three months as a camp counselor. i remember getting out of my sister's car at his funeral and not wanting to go into the church because i didn't like the dress i was wearing. i was a junior in college and about to cry because i didn't think i looked cute. then i realized i wasn't about to cry because of the dress. i didn't even care about the dress. i don't remember if i cried during his funeral. probably not, i tend not to cry, but i know i cried before and after in private. and although it's been two years, i still almost cry when i think of him.

my grandfather died this year. i miss the sound of his voice.
i have this intense fear that i'll forget how it sounded and i'll lose just another small piece of him.

i'll forget the noises he made with his cheeks when he got out of a chair or how he answered the phone "hell-O?" as if he was about to tell you a joke. i'll forget how he always offered to call MSU and have his 30 hours of college transferred over to me. how he could remember anyone's phone number and never wrote it down or his recaps of the news and the latest "married with children" rerun. i'm afraid i'll forget.

he was a blue pickup truck with me riding in the middle, megan on my other side. he was flintstone orange pop-ups at the gas station and trying not to bang my skinny kid knees whenever he changed gears. he was the leather workgloves in the truck's toolbox. the pecans littering the driveway collected by his granddaughters little gloved hands. the chair in the living room where he'd watch the world walk by his front door.

with my grandfather, i did get a small kind of goodbye. he was lying in a hospital bed with a tube down his throat. he looked so uncomfortable but also as if he had fallen asleep in his favorite chair with his mouth open. he pulled through that time. my grandmother wouldn't leave his side with fear in her eyes even though she was recuperating from knee surgery. i don't think i realized how much they loved each other until just then. my family tends to show their affection for each other with fighting and my grandparents had a lot of affection for each other.

but now, now i see real heartache in my grandmother's eyes. i look at her overwhelmed with depression and i catch a bit of it myself.
my heart has been wounded before and i've tasted my share of heartbreak. but every time i look at my grandmother- all i can think is, "that's real heartbreak. that's the kind of heartbreak where the man you lived with for more than half your life isn't lying beside you in bed anymore. you can't call him to tell him about your day or a story you know he'd like. he won't make you eggs for breakfast and you can pack the extra quilt that kept him warm at night."
it's the kind of heartbreak where you want to share something with the person who you've always shared things - but it's not possible.

how do you get over something like that?
the answer: you don't.

which is why death sucks.
plain and simple.
but every now and then i'll take a minute to recall their voices.
just so i won't forget.
because one day i'll have to describe them to my husband. my children. my great-grandchildren. i'll have to tell them about two of the most important men in my life they never got to meet.
until then, i might just use my recorder for other things then newspaper interviews.