A Voice from the Past: The Night I Heard My ‘Late’ Husband in Our Daughter’s Room
Grief has a way of distorting reality, of making the impossible seem real, but what I experienced that night was something far beyond the tricks of a grieving mind. I knew Jeremy’s voice—every laugh, every whispered goodnight. It had been two years since he died in a car accident. Two years of empty spaces and deafening silence.
That’s why when I heard him speak again—clear as day, coming from our daughter’s bedroom—I couldn’t breathe.
I froze in the hallway, my heart hammering so hard I thought I might faint. The voice was unmistakable. Deep, warm, filled with love.
“I love you forever.”
A cold shiver crawled up my spine. My hands trembled as I reached for the doorknob. Slowly, I pushed it open, half-expecting some cruel trick of my imagination to vanish before my eyes.
But there was Sophia, curled up in her crib, her tiny arms wrapped around her favorite teddy bear. She slept soundly, completely unaware that my world had just been flipped upside down.
The voice came again. “I love you forever.”
I staggered back, clutching my chest. My mind raced for an explanation—was someone in the house? Was it some kind of dream? But everything was normal. The windows were locked. The room was undisturbed. The only thing out of place was the overwhelming presence of a voice that should no longer exist.
Then, I noticed the teddy bear.
With shaking hands, I reached down and pressed it.
“I love you forever.”
Jeremy’s voice.
The realization hit me like a crashing wave. I gasped, my knees nearly giving out beneath me. How? How was this possible?
Then, I remembered—the teddy bear had been a gift. My mother-in-law had given it to Sophia just days ago. At the time, I had barely registered it, too lost in the sorrow of facing yet another milestone without Jeremy.
I grabbed my phone and called Gloria. When she answered, I could already hear the hesitation in her voice.
“Kelly…” she started, her tone guilty, as if she already knew why I was calling.
“His voice,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out. “The bear… it’s Jeremy’s voice.”
Silence stretched between us before she finally sighed.
“I… I took a recording from your wedding video,” she admitted. “From his vows. I wanted Sophia to have something of him. Something real. I just… I thought she should hear her father.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. My emotions were tangled in a storm of grief, shock, and gratitude.
“I should’ve told you,” Gloria said. “I just wasn’t sure how.”
I swallowed hard, looking at my daughter’s peaceful face. The pain of losing Jeremy had been unbearable, but in that moment, as his voice filled the room once more, I realized something—he wasn’t entirely gone. He lived on in the memories, in the love we still carried, and now, in the small but powerful voice inside that bear.
I sat beside Sophia and pulled her close, pressing the bear one last time.
“I love you forever.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks, but for the first time in a long time, they weren’t only from sorrow.
They were also from love.