Gram, Dad, Mum, Gramp, me
I was going through some old external hard drives today, looking for a specific song. I didn’t find it, but I found something much, much better; an interview I did with my parents in 2015.
The inspiration for doing this came from an interview I’d heard a couple of years before on CBC radio. A woman told the story of how she remembered her mother telling her bedtime stories when she was a toddler. Her mother died of cancer a few years later, and she thought she’d never hear her mother’s voice again.
Fast forward 30 years. Her father had recently passed away, and she had to clean out the house. While doing so, she found a cassette of her mother reading her bedtime stories. The voice she thought she’d never hear again. She sounded so happy to have a bit of her mum back.
I decided I’d like to have a recording of my mum and dad. We sat down at their dining room table and had a nice chat. I learned things about both of them that I’d never known. It’s not that we hadn’t talked about their lives. They were always very open with me, but this was the first and only time we sat down with the intent of talking about our family history.
We started at the beginning when they were born in Scotland – Mum in Edinburgh in 1939, Dad in Aberdeen in 1936 – and got all the way to 1967 when we immigrated to Canada. Lots of laughs. A few sombre moments. Family.
My grandpa, great-grandpa, great-great grandpa, great-great-great grandpa
Aberdeen, Scotland circa 1917
I hope this recording survives for generations. Can you imagine hearing your great-great-great grandparents telling stories about their lives? We live in a time when we can easily do this magic… so do it.
I haven’t heard my dad’s voice in three years. He died on Christmas Eve in 2021 at the age of 85. Today I heard him come back to life for a while, and I’m sitting here with tears of grief and joy streaming down my face.
Sit down with your loved ones and record a long conversation. Please. If I could do it again, I’d video it, but there’s also something magical about simple audio. Record it on your phone. You don’t need anything fancy.
The master recording will be duplicated half a dozen times and be stored in multiple locations. My kids will get flash drives. It’ll be on iCloud and Dropbox. I’ll be able to listen to my mum and dad until it’s my turn to not wake up.
When I say the things I want the most can’t be bought, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. This is priceless.