Grief plays tricks on the mind, but this? This was real. Kelly knew her husband’s voice and had just heard it… coming from her daughter’s room. A chill ran down her spine. Jeremy had been dead for two years. So who – or what – was speaking in his voice? Then she walked in… and FREEZED.
I’m Kelly. I’m 30 years old and my life has been a rollercoaster of love and loss. My husband, Jeremy, died in a car accident two years ago. I was eight months pregnant with our daughter, Sophia. One moment I was painting flowers on the walls of her room, dreaming of our future. The next, I received a phone call that shattered my world.
I remember that moment as if it were yesterday. The paintbrush slipped from my fingers, leaving a trail of pink paint on the wall.
“Miss Kelly?“ the voice on the phone was soft, practiced. ‘This is Agent Reynolds…’
“Yes?” My hand instinctively went to my bulging belly. Sophia kicked, as if she sensed my fear.
“There’s been an accident. Your husband…“
“No,” I whispered. “No, please…”
I was told the accident was serious, so serious that I wasn’t to see his body. I never got to say goodbye. Just a closed coffin at the funeral, and that was it.
“Kelly, darling,“ my mother had said to me at the funeral, hugging me as I sobbed. ‘You have to stay strong. For the baby.’
“How?” I choked. “How am I supposed to do this without him? He was supposed to be here. I was supposed to hold her…”
Two years later, I was doing everything I could to move on, to be strong for Sophia. But the emptiness? It never really went away.
And then, two days ago, something happened that made me question everything.
It was an ordinary afternoon. I had left Sophia napping in her room and curled up on the sofa with a book. The house was quiet. Quiet.
Until I heard it.
The sound of a window closing. Not too loud, just enough to make me look up. Probably the wind, I thought. But then, my blood ran cold when… My God… when I heard JEREMY’S VOICE:
“I love you forever.”
I swear to God, my whole body turned to ice.
It wasn’t a faded memory in my head. It wasn’t a fantasy. It was CLEAR AS DAY.
I stood frozen, my breath catching. My ears were ringing. My heart was beating so fast I thought I would pass out.
“Jeremy?” I whispered into the silence, my voice trembling. ”Honey, is that you?”
No. No, no, no. Jeremy was gone. It wasn’t POSSIBLE.
But I heard it. Again.
“I love you forever.”
It was coming from Sophia’s room.
I got up so fast that the book fell from my lap. My mind was filled with possibilities: Was there someone there? Was I hallucinating?
Was Jeremy ALIVE?
I rushed down the hall, barely feeling my feet touching the ground. My hands were freezing and my stomach was churning, as if I were going to vomit.
“Please,” I whispered as I ran, tears already forming. ”Please, if you’re there…”
I pushed open Sophia’s door.
She was fast asleep in her cot, curled up, her little fingers clutching a teddy bear. The room was just as I had left it. No windows open. No shadows in the corner. Nothing.
But then I heard it again.
“I love you forever.”
I swore my heart stopped.
“Jeremy?” My voice broke. ”Is this some kind of cruel joke? Please… I can’t… I can’t bear it…”
I walked around the room with trembling hands as I approached the window. Something had to explain this.
My fingers brushed the glass. It was closed. Locked. Outside, a small tree branch rested against the glass, broken as if it had fallen against it.
Okay. That explained the noise. But Jeremy’s voice?
I looked at Sophia again. She stirred in her sleep, hugging the bear tighter.
“Daddy,” she murmured in her sleep, and my heart broke again.
And then it hit me.
The bear.
I knelt down by her crib and my hands trembled as I took it. I squeezed it.
“I love you forever.”
My chest tightened so much that I thought I would collapse.
Jeremy’s voice… It was coming from the bear.
“Oh God…”, I sobbed, pressing the bear to my chest. ‘Oh God, Jeremy…’.
I sat down on the sofa, looking at the bear as if it were about to come to life.
I didn’t remember buying it. Had someone given it to Sophia as a gift?
And then I remembered. A week ago we had celebrated Sophia’s second birthday. My mother-in-law, Gloria, had given her this bear.
“Look what Grandma gave you!” she had said, trying to appear cheerful despite the pain she felt in her chest. Another birthday without Jeremy.
She had barely looked at it at the time. It was just another stuffed animal.
But now? Now she needed answers. So she called Gloria.
She answered on the second ring. “Kelly, hi, sweetie! Is everything okay?”
I held the bear tighter. ‘Did you know that this thing reproduces Jeremy’s voice?”
Silence.
Then, a silent, almost hesitant: ’Oh… did it finally work?”
My stomach twisted. ”Finally? What do you mean FINALLY?”
Gloria sighed. “I was wondering when you’d hear it.”
I sat up straighter. ‘Gloria. What have you done?”
“Kelly, please,’ her voice faltered. ‘Let me explain…”
“Explain what?’ I demanded, raising my voice. ”Explain to me why you thought it was okay…”
I couldn’t even finish the sentence.
Gloria appeared an hour later, almost nervous. She sat down in front of me, her hands folded and her eyes scrutinizing my face.
“I just… I thought it would help,” she said softly.
I placed the bear between us. ‘Help who?”
She exhaled. ’Sophia. And you.”
I stared at her.
“Kelly,” she crossed the table and took my hand. ‘Every time Sophia asks about her father… every time I see you trying to explain it to her… it breaks my heart.”
“And don’t you think this breaks mine?’ My voice cracked. ”To hear his voice again, out of the blue?”
Gloria swallowed hard. “After Jeremy died, I couldn’t stop thinking that Sophia would never know her father’s voice. So I took a recording of their wedding video. Do you remember their vows?”
My throat closed up.
“‘I love you forever’,” she whispered.
My God.
“I remember,” I choked. ‘He…practiced those vows for weeks. He said he had to make them perfect…”
She clasped her hands together. ’I had him sew it into the teddy bear before his birthday. I wanted him to have a piece of him. To know that he is always with her.”
I blinked hard, staring at the table, my mind reeling.
I had meant well. I knew that. But I felt so surprised.
“Gloria,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. ‘You should have told me.”
“I know,’ she admitted with a fragile smile. ”I just… I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Disgust me?” I laughed bitterly. ‘I thought I was going crazy. I thought… for a moment, I thought he was…”
“Alive?’ Gloria finished in a low voice. ”Oh, darling…”
She came over to the table and held me in her arms as I broke down.
“I miss him so much,” I cried. ‘Every day …”
“I know,’ he stroked my hair. ”He would be so proud of you, Kelly. So proud of how you are raising Sophia.”
I didn’t know what to say.
I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t relieved. I was just … overwhelmed.
That night, I sat in Sophia’s room, watching her sleep. The bear was in my lap. My fingers ran through the soft fabric as I looked at my little girl, the daughter Jeremy never got to meet.
She looked so much like him. The same curve of the nose, the same dimple when she smiled and the same bright blue eyes.
“You would have loved her so much,“ I whispered in the darkness. ‘She’s perfect, Jeremy. Just perfect.”
I squeezed the bear one last time as a familiar voice filled the room and my heart:
’I love you forever.”
A lump formed in my throat. I quickly wiped my eyes, swallowing the pain.
I missed him.
Sophia stirred and opened her eyes. “Mommy?”
“Hi, baby,” I whispered, moving closer to stroke her cheek.
“Teddy bear?” She reached for the stuffed animal.
I gave it to her and watched as she pressed it to her chest. Jeremy’s voice filled the room again.
“It’s your father,” I said, my voice choked with tears. ‘He loves you so, so much.”
“Dad?’ She looked at the bear with wide eyes and then back at me.
“Yes, sweetheart. It’s Dad.”
She hugged the bear tighter and closed her eyes. ”I love Dada.”
For a long time I thought I had lost everything. But here, in my daughter’s arms, there was a piece of him.
I leaned over and kissed Sophia’s forehead.
“You will always have him with you, my sweet girl,” I whispered. ”Always.”
The grief was still there. It always would be.
But for the first time in a long, long time… I didn’t feel so alone.