WLRN's Tom Hudson reflects on a year when he lost four people he was close to, including his mom, and the digital remnants that have helped him remember their experiences together.
I’m not a pack rat, but I tend to hold onto digital artifacts. I always seem to hit “save” instead of “delete” for photos, videos and voicemails. Over the past year of loss, I’m glad I did.
One of Charles Michael’s last text messages to me before he died in October 2024 was an audio mashup of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” matched with John Denver singing “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” It worked, with the kind of strange alchemy that only music can create.
Charles was the mastermind behind the computer systems and software where I work as a journalist. I still find humor in his musical appreciation.
His would be the first of two sudden deaths — the kind one cannot possibly prepare for — that would punctuate the beginning and end of about a year when I lost four people I was close to, including my mom.
READ MORE: This was 2025: The most impactful and joyful stories of the year
Lorna Gladstone gave me my first big break in broadcast journalism. Her professional mentorship grew into a close personal friendship. She was my boss — but also attended my wedding.
She was diagnosed with a serious health condition as 2025 began. Soon, she no longer was able to answer text messages or voice mails. After Lorna died in June, I rediscovered a voicemail she had left me a few years earlier “just checking in to make sure you got home OK.”
A month later my mom woke up and couldn’t get out of bed.
“Hey,” my sister texted me. “She is calling to have an ambulance come. We didn’t know what else to do. I feel helpless at this moment.”
I was overseas.
“Ok,” I responded. “Yes, ambulance. Is there a neighbor who can unlock the door?”
That was the beginning of what would be Mom’s final four months of her life — a period that would draw my sister and I into a much closer relationship.
After Mom died in November, I was sitting in the kitchen in the house where I grew up and discovered a DropBox folder I’d created a few years earlier. It held audio recordings of “interviews” of my mom by my sister and me.
“I had a wonderful childhood,” her voice rang out. “I began my childhood doing everything I was told to do. I didn’t end my childhood that way.” The three of us laughed in that way you do when someone reveals a truth in a new way.
She told us stories about learning what the middle finger meant. She was in college at the time. She shared how she dated a senior when she was a high school sophomore and, despite a teacher warning her father, she reassured him that it was a “fling. Trust me.” He did. Mom also reminded us to get a colonoscopy.
As she moved through rehab and assisted living, her text messages became shorter. It was harder for her to type on her phone, and she couldn’t get the hang of voice-to-text. Our text thread became a series of me reminding her of doctor’s appointments.
Days after her painless and peaceful passing, I also discovered several saved voicemails.
“Hey, Tom, it’s me,” she said in October 2019 from Honolulu. “Just wanted to say we will be on our way to New Zealand. Love you. Bye-bye.”
One of the T-shirts she brought back for her grandsons is still worn today.
Two weeks later, I was in a concert hall with more than 4,000 people when I spotted a guy on the overhead video screen with the same gray goatee and big, broad smile of my colleague, Michael Anderson. I texted him.
“What’s up, sir?” he responded within minutes. “Where are you located?”
I ran over to say hello. His first words were condolences on the death of my mom. Never did I think I would be sharing condolences on his sudden death nine days later.
Everyone grieves in different ways, say experts on that sort of thing. Telling stories of those who passed is one way. These text threads and voicemails have helped me remember our experiences together.
Sharing their tales through these digital remnants keeps their spirits with me. What they meant to me is never deleted as long as I share their spirits with others.
This article was originally published by the Miami Herald.
