A Gift in The Mail

Life’s been pretty busy the last few months.. work, trips overseas, work.. most days it’s hard to find time come the the KAST site ( though I always find a way) let alone put a post on here.. some weeks I can barely find time to open my mail.

I received a package, from Mom, while I was in Europe and had opened it the night I got home.. sorted through it and set it aside for “later.” It had some instructional manuals I needed and a few CD’s of pics.. but with heavy jetlag, and a trip to China looking just a few short weeks after returning from Europe, I didn’t have much time for pictures and things. So it sat on the hall table for several weeks.

While we were in China, Mom and I were talking one night and she said, “you haven’t listened to the CD yet have you!” CD? There were some picture CD’s, but I admitted I had not looked through most of the stuff in the package yet.

Well, have been back from China for a few days… almost over the jetlag ( and wow that was some jetlag).. and decided to pull out the CD tonight.

On the CD were the voicemail messages Kerrie had left Mom over the course of the year she was in the hospital. They started in August of 2006, right after she went into the hospital, and the last one was in June of 2007. Like me, Mom had kept some of the voicemail messages but not all of them.. and she had finally found a way to get them off her voicemail and recorded onto a CD.

My hands were shaking as I listened to Kerrie’s beautiful voice, listened to the date “stamp” on the voicemails and remembered what was happening at the time each of those messages was left.

I listened to her messages, from August, 2006 and thought about how we had no idea what was to come.. then listening to her messages from the next June and couldn’t help but think about how many days were “left” from the point of each message…

Although it was a bittersweet gift, I’m happy to know that Mom found a way for Dad, Mom, Ron and me to have Kerrie’s voice always close by where we can hear her when we need to.

Jenn