I have this amazing closeness with one of my granddaughters. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s my rainbow baby after the loss of my grandson, or because she looks just like her mother, one of my two amazing girls. Maybe it’s a combination of the two.

Whatever the reason, from the time Rosaleen was born, she spent lots of time with her Grammi.

Then I got sick, and she couldn’t come over for a little bit.

I was feeling really down one day when I noticed I’d missed a call from my son-in-law. He had left a voicemail, which was unusual because he never leaves voicemails!

I almost didn’t listen. I figured I’d just call him back. But then I thought, He left you a voicemail. Listen, you crazy woman!

And oh, am I ever glad I did.

The first voice I heard was my son-in-law saying, “Are you not gonna talk? You wanted to call her.”

There was a pause, and then came my sweet Rosaleen’s little voice, saying only she knows what for the next 50 seconds.

And at the very end my son-in-law interrupted with five little words.

“She just kissed the phone.”

I cried for a bit after listening. Then I listened again. And again.

At first, it was that sweet little voice that got me. But then it was those last five words.

She just kissed the phone.

I still have that voicemail today. It was left on March 19, 2020, when Rosaleen was just 15 months old.

There have been a few times over the years when I thought I’d lost it, and let me tell you, I panicked! Because that little voicemail means so much more to me than a recording of a toddler babbling to her Grammi.

I don’t just listen to it when I’m having a bad day. I listen when I’m happy, when I’m tired, or just because I want to hear that precious little voice again.

It still makes me tear up and smile, sometimes at the very same time.

And it reminds me that love doesn’t always need words. Sometimes it comes through in the smallest, simplest moments, and stays with us long after those moments have passed.

Sometimes love, family, and hope are just a voicemail away.