voice notes with the dead
when the small stuff is really the big stuff
listening to:
Three weeks before she died, I asked my best friend to tell me the story of her first queer heartbreak. Without her knowing, I pressed ‘record’ on the voice memo app on my iPad, wanting to take in every inch of what she had to say.
In the months leading up to her death, I had asked Mo if I could interview her. “I want to document the edges of your life,” I said, and she agreed. Sadly, life got the best of us, and we never got around to it. But I had a feeling that this trip to Baltimore might be our final time together. She was getting sicker, and after several visits to the ICU, I knew this might my last shot to ask her about her past.
Mo was dying of ovarian cancer. We didn’t have the words then, but that is what was happening. Everything was moving in slow motion during that visit, and I couldn’t gulp it up fast enough. I wanted to know every part of her. I wanted to access the recesses of her memory, knowing that it might be gone from my grasp soon. I wanted to box it up and archive it for the future—one without her in it.
But there wasn’t possibly enough time to absorb her entire experience here on Earth. So this is what I asked: Tell me about how you learned you were queer. Tell me about the first time someone ripped your heart to shreds. Tell me what you learned from the pain. Tell me how it changed you. And she did. I recorded a 30-minute voice note of her telling that story, of us in conversation about the past.
In the 18 months since she died, I’ve debated opening the voice note and giving it a listen. I’ve come across it frequently, but it’s never felt like the right time. When someone dies, you’re left recounting all the stuff that’s already happened—the texts you’ve already read, the voicemails you’ve already listened to, the notes you’ve already opened. When someone’s life is taken too soon, there isn’t much room for future tripping. I guess I wanted to live in the anticipation of what was inside that wrapped treasure, basking in the little bit of mystery we had left. Even though I had been there during its recording, there was still something inside it I hadn’t accessed yet—and that gave me something to hold onto.
This past week, as I made my way through the TSA line at the Orange County airport, something in my bones was telling me to listen to this voice memo. I had let it ripen long enough, and like a sweet summer peach, it was ready to be eaten.
Maybe the nudge came from the fact that being in California, beneath the palm trees, reminds me of Mo. I visited her and her wife in Santa Barbara, during one of Mo’s clinical trials. It was on this trip that we became certain that the cancer would kill her. It was on this trip that we built a sandcastle on the beach and cooked a taco feast together—trying to forget that the cancer would kill her.
I was also on my way to Los Angeles when Mo told me she was going to start hospice care. Throughout the weekend, I sent her photos from Venice Beach, videos from the Brandi Carlisle concert, updates from the gay bar—each sparkly moment overshadowed by the unbearable reality of losing her. The last time we spoke on the phone was driving down Highway 101, when she called me to tell me she loves me—and to tell K and I to go to an Angel City game because if she couldn’t get there, then we should (and when we did go see that game, Sydney Leroux scored the most unbelievable goal on a bicycle kick, and I shared that celebration video with Mo, then cried from the what-the-fuck of it all). On the other side of the phone, she lay hooked up to an oxygen tank. Her heart stopped beating 10 days later.
So yeah, it makes perfect sense that, as I left California this time around, the voice memo landed at the doorstep of my heart, begging to be heard.
Standing in the security line, leaving Anaheim, I pressed play. I listened to her tell a story about coming-of-age as a queer kid in Arkansas, about unrequited love, about choosing herself, about the lessons we learn when someone stomps on your heart strings. But mostly, I listened to what it was like to be in the same room with her again. How we laughed together. How our voices and souls were intertwined in the space. How we played off one another. How she widened my lens on the world through the simplest, most mundane conversations.
Like jumping into a time machine, there we were again. Sitting across from each other in her living room—giggling at our bad jokes, talking to her dogs, unpacking the complexity and nuance of love and life—like we had done so many times before. I miss a lot of things about my friend, but I mostly miss who we were when we were together. The feeling can be so difficult to access when someone passes; their existence feels so real, and at the same time, like a fever dream. Listening to this voice memo, I had living proof that we did, in fact, exist in this world at the same time. Yes, it was real, and yes, we were golden.
I often feel like I know Mo better than I did when she was alive. Since she passed, I’ve come to understand her intricacies in new ways. Despite the distance between our physical bodies, our relationship has deepened, and new pathways have opened up between us that I never could have dreamt up. It’s tragic that we need to lose the things we love in order for us to awaken to the magic that was was there all along, but I’ve also come to understand this as a part of the experience of grief. The heartbreak stretches us, deepens us, and transforms our understanding of life—and while we wouldn’t wish the grief on ourselves or anyone, it allows us to live more fully, to see the world with fresh eyes.
If only we could have had that wisdom and growth without the loss. If only.
Last night, as I hustled around checking things off the to-do list at the end of my day, I stepped outside long enough to hear the birds singing at dusk. I saw my two dogs laying at the edge of the porch—their hopeful eyes staring back at me, vying for my attention and touch. I remembered that someday soon, they will be gone from this world—that someday soon, I would give anything to get back here, to feel their puppy fur against my skin, to cuddle them on a warm spring evening.
You can’t get this moment back, I told myself. Sit the fuck down. Take it all in.
I laid myself down next to them, remembering that these small moments are actually the big moments because they won’t exist again. Our loss is inevitable. Our grief is part of being alive. But today, I choose to awaken to the bliss of today. I choose to be with the simple beauty of what’s here right now.
Thank you for reading, thank you for being here. Sending love your way.
✨ Life is beautiful ✨