I had never thought about capturing his voice. Sharon Koppel in Mifflinburg, Pa., lost her husband, Jeff, in 2020. He was 73.
I had no recordings of Jeff’s voice after he died. Then I stumbled upon a video of him riding his bike to our local Y.M.C.A. and sharing why exercise and his friends there were important to him, in his deep, gentle, kind voice. I smiled at the T-shirt he had on: a cartoon of a dog with drinking glasses and the words, “I make pour decisions.”
We were together for almost 30 years. I had two prior marriages that were not the best, so meeting Jeff was like meeting my soulmate. Every day was fun.
Courtesy of the Greater Susquehanna Valley YMCA
He had contracted Cushing’s disease eight years before, and it had a debilitating effect on his body and muscles and all kinds of stuff. He decided he would sign up for the local Y.M.C.A., and he became a regular, riding his bike five days a week to his class.
They made the video as part of a fundraising campaign many years ago, and I hadn’t thought about it in so long. He was in remission and doing so well, and then, suddenly, he wasn’t. After seven weeks in hospice care, he died.
He died at home, and it was just so busy. About a month after he died, someone asked me if I had saved any of his voicemails, and I had been so preoccupied that I didn’t even think about it. I got all the photos, but I had never thought about capturing his voice.
I ran into the head of the Y.M.C.A. down at the grocery store, and I asked her if, by any chance, they had any video of Jeff talking. She said, “Sure, we have that video from the campaign,” and I just burst into tears.
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