I had a problem: I had absolutely no recollection of ever hearing my father talk

We yesomim take the memories of our parents and relive their personas in all our major life events. But I had a problem: I had absolutely no recollection of ever hearing my father talk

I can recall exactly where I was when I first heard my father’s voice. I sat hunched over my dining room table, staring at my phone in shock. You see, I was just two years old when my father passed away, too young to have any recollection of him, but too old to have any deniability.People always wondered how many memories a two-year-old yasom retains, and a common question I would get asked is if I remembered what he sounded like. That answer was always no. But now, at age 31, access to that primal memory had just fallen into my lap.

This can’t be real, I thought. I felt like an archeologist who had at long last uncovered an artifact from a bygone civilization, yet with something more personal at stake. Just maybe, with this discovery, something in me might be unearthed as well.

Everything about this moment felt surreal. As if it were all some elaborate prank, or a fleeting dream from which I’d soon wake up. Even the medium in which my father’s voice was sent to me felt cryptic. A video recording of a speaker playing a snippet from an old cassette tape. Three degrees separated from an actual voice. Terrible sound quality and archaic equipment aside, I could not have been more excited. The enormity of this find felt groundbreaking.

Why, then, was I hesitating? My finger hovered over the play button, unwilling to let the recording start. Is this not what I had always dreamed of? Did I not yearn for this exact moment for years?