Stories



Message from Mom

I am blown away.  I, and my family, have been tormented by something that happened after my mother's death, and it happened to me.  I never looked into it further, because I probably didn't want to know.  But it has stayed with me and I can't get it out of my mind. In July of 1997 my mother died.  She had been ill for a while and was frequently irritable and angry.  She particularly didn't like answering phone devices, nor did she like to leave messages.  My mom used to say, whether you answered the phone or not, "It's me!" At the time, and after her death, I did not have the usual answering machine.  Rather, I received my messages through U.S. West Telemessaging, where you pick up the receiver and you hear a pulsing sound telling you that you have a message.  You then call a service and retrieve your calls, whereupon you get a recording that tells you the date and time the call was "received."  After my mother's death, I had a surgery (one she probably wouldn't have approved of).  Anyway, when I was in the hospital, I received a call--and when I got home, the telemessaging recording told me the call took place (don't have date in front of me at present), which was over a month after her death.  The message was simply, in an irritated voice, "IT'S ME!"
I was so shocked, I dropped the phone.  Still not well from the surgery, I immediately called my sister, brother and father.  My brother signed up for the same service, so that I could "transfer" the message directly into his message bank for his calls.  I did so.  My brother lives in another city from me.  My brother was very close to my mother and was living with her and my dad prior to her death.  My brother, my sister and my father, all said there was absolutely no question that this was Mom's voice. 
While I am neither a believer nor a nonbeliever of such things, the rest of my family would be far closer to nonbelievers.  We were, to say the least, dumbfounded. It didn't make sense to me that she would leave such a message---it didn't say anything, and yet, it clearly said it was "her" because only she would have left such a message.  Take that together with the fact that her voice is unmistakable, it is really shocking. Both my brother and I used a phone recording device and tape recorded this message onto a microcassette for prosperity. 
Looking back on it now though, I wish I would have delved into the matter right at that time, because it would have been simple to prove that this message did come in AFTER HER death, and maybe even a voice match could have been done (if there is such a thing).   By the way, I don't know if I told you this or not, but when this phone message came through, I was in the hospital having a surgical procedure I am quite sure my Mother would disapprove of.  My brother doesn't know about this...but my sister does.  So the impression both of us got was it was her saying "IT'S ME!"  Kind of like, don't for one minute think I don't know what you are up to!