On My (Our) Voice

My voice is my mother's, my sister's, my aunt and my grandmother's.

In high school, it was a bit of a running joke that one of my close friends always asked to speak to me when he called — even if he was fairly certain I had answered the phone — because my mom, my sister, and I all sound so much the same by phone. Even close friends and family members couldn't always tell us apart.

I wonder if our voices have grown apart in the time we haven't lived under the same roof.

My mother sounds more and more like my grandmother to my ears. It's poignant to hear Grandma in my mother's voice now, so soon after she has passed. It's a bit like she's not really gone.

My mother's voice has deepened and softened a bit over the years. So has mine. I used to be a soprano, and now I would really have to work to get that range back. (Voice is a muscle, after all.) Mom used to be a honeyed alto, and now is closer to a tenor.

She lamented to me recently that she feels she has no singing voice left.

As I write this, it's too early to tell if you will have the family voice, dear girl, but I'd guess you will. I already hear myself in you when you parrot phrases back to me (sometimes funny and sometimes hard to hear).

My voice sounds like my mother's, but my father is in it too, in my singing voice, in my love of music, in my enthusiasm for great TV and movies. My Poppy is in my voice in my storytelling ability. My Grandpa A., I believe, is in my ability to teach.

I hear my sister in my words sometimes, my mother in the phrases I choose, my grandmother in certain old fashioned things I say.

They are all a part of our voice.