Thursday, June 16, 2005
His master's voice
Background: The company I (co-) founded 14+ years ago is about to disappear. Part of it will be sold; another part will continue on its own, under a new name. We are about to exit the premises we first rented in June 1991 (during, one might note, a Bush war in Iraq: plus ca change ...)
The firm had and still has some pretty good IT toys. One was a great PBX; Peter, my founding partner, wangled an ungodly great deal to get a ridiculously nifty PBX. More, over the years it was upgraded until, now, when my office phone rings, a little screen pops up on my laptop -- even if I'm thousands of miles away from the PBX -- saying who's calling (and I can push the caller into voice mail from afar, as well!).
And so, behind the scenes, the voice mail messages are readable by my computer.
And so: in late May 2002, my father called me at the office to wish me happy birthday. I was absent, the call dropped to voice mail. Eight or ten weeks later, my father passed away. I never deleted the voice mail ... and also only listened to it once, three years ago. But with the company and the PBX about to be unplugged, I turned to our most-excellent IT guy to find out how to export the message from the PBX. He installed a software patch and minutes later ... my father's voice rang out, wishing me a happy birthday. This, naturally, happened on my birthday this year.
His message had his so-familiar tones; I missed him terribly when I heard him. And more so when he signed off saying, simply "I'm okay". But the careful innuendo in the tones of his voice, the pause between the "I'm" and the "okay", the descending note tell another story.
And with my ex having full control of all my family photographs and videos, this is just about the only electronic memento I have.
The firm had and still has some pretty good IT toys. One was a great PBX; Peter, my founding partner, wangled an ungodly great deal to get a ridiculously nifty PBX. More, over the years it was upgraded until, now, when my office phone rings, a little screen pops up on my laptop -- even if I'm thousands of miles away from the PBX -- saying who's calling (and I can push the caller into voice mail from afar, as well!).
And so, behind the scenes, the voice mail messages are readable by my computer.
And so: in late May 2002, my father called me at the office to wish me happy birthday. I was absent, the call dropped to voice mail. Eight or ten weeks later, my father passed away. I never deleted the voice mail ... and also only listened to it once, three years ago. But with the company and the PBX about to be unplugged, I turned to our most-excellent IT guy to find out how to export the message from the PBX. He installed a software patch and minutes later ... my father's voice rang out, wishing me a happy birthday. This, naturally, happened on my birthday this year.
His message had his so-familiar tones; I missed him terribly when I heard him. And more so when he signed off saying, simply "I'm okay". But the careful innuendo in the tones of his voice, the pause between the "I'm" and the "okay", the descending note tell another story.
And with my ex having full control of all my family photographs and videos, this is just about the only electronic memento I have.
|| Unknown, 4:40 PM
1 Comments:
It's so sad...I can feel the melancholy..I went through the same with the death of my boyfriend...not deleting his messages. listening to his favorite songs again and again an again...
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