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Semper Vox

Edmund M. Weisberg

Answering machines.
Voicemail.
Bastions,
Receptacles,
Of aural memory.

Like you,
I had to have a landline.
And with it,
An answering machine.

It captured your voice
A month
Or two
Before you died.

The word “dead”
Rings in my ears.
In your voice.
I would broach
A politician,
Athlete,
Actor,
Some kind of
Performer.
If deceased, you’d say,
With fake pique,
She or he is
“Dead.”
As if they didn’t
Warrant a mention.

They did.
You do.

Somehow,
You’ve been gone for nine months.
I could have given
Birth,
If able.
You’d appreciate that joke.

My sisters
And I
Struggle
With your loss.
Hardly believing it
Possible.

Visual memories
Flit across my brain.
No conversation,
No words
Recalled,
Though I’m sure
They were spoken.
I struggle to relive
Those moments,
Remember the words.

I don’t hold on,
Grasping the grief,
Just
For the sake of it.
I don’t know when
Your loss will feel
Less acute.
I know that I will
Mourn you
Until I die.

I recall my dear friend,
Johanna,
Who feared losing the
Last remnants
Of her betrothed,
Who killed himself
Hours before they were to
Wed.
She wanted to remember
His aroma,
His voice,
His touch.

So, too,
I wonder if
I fear forgetting
The nuances
Of your voice.
I haven’t listened
To the answering machine
Recording
Or others I could dig up
On cassette or microscassette.

I haven’t been able
To comb through pictures, either.
Yet.
Your loss remains
Too painful
To appreciate in its scope.
Your presence, or the presence
Of your death
Lurks,
Reminds me
Nearly every waking second.

A truth,
Which I feel on a cellular level,
Is that I wouldn’t or couldn’t
Forget you,
Barring Alzheimer’s
Or other catastrophic
Brain disease.

I don’t want to risk erasing
The recording, though.
I need to cling to that part of you.
To find some solace
In knowing
That I’ll be able
To listen to it.
To you.

But your absence kills me.
It isn’t that I, and your other loved ones,
Can’t see you,
But that you can’t see.
Us, anything, the miasma
Of the world that you found
So starkly different from your youth.
That you’re not here to react to it all.
To see it unfold or,
Really,
Devolve.
You would be absorbed
In impeachment coverage,
Continuing to reel
From how foreign
The government
Of this woebegone country
Had come to feel to you.

But, of course,
I want to hear you,
And your complaints
About the heat and humidity,
Feel your unconditional love,
Rather than remember it,
And see you, too,
Animated, laughing.

I do see you in my dreams.
I continue to imagine
New conversations with you.
Knowing you as your son
For 53 years
Gives me insight,
More robust than I
Might have realized,
As to what you’d say,
Into how you’d react
To the world you’ve
Left behind.

And that’s how I hear your voice.
In the words of surprise,
Irritation,
Praise that you expressed,
Jokes that you shared,
As they flow from me
In similar situations,
The same intonations,
Accompanying
Body language,
Head shake.

You’d be honored, moved,
But wouldn’t want us
To be suffering
As we have.

If you knew,
You would acknowledge
“The beating”
That we’ve endured.
And that looms.

I’m saddened, angry,
Deeply disappointed,
Disgusted,
By the prospects for humanity.
It is a grim reality
We face,
Spurred and incurred
By the most avaricious
Among us.
Reality sickened me
Before your death.
This new reality,
Without you,
Makes me despise it
So much more.

Dad,
Your voice is inside of me,
My sisters,
For the rest of our lives.

I still want to preserve
The recording.
But if that is somehow
Lost,
It won’t mean losing you again.

I will hear your voice
By uttering
What you’d say,
Repeating the anecdotes
That delighted you,
Sharing what I know
Of your story,
Listening to others’
Memories of you.

It isn’t enough.
It couldn’t be.
But, through the years,
People
Have told me
That I’ve brought
My grandparents to life
In recounting their stories,
My stories.
With my voice,
I’ll strive
To preserve yours.

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