A harbinger of what makes us all tic and makes it all worth it is buried under the bodies of the bleeding trivia in all our lives. We willingly acknowledge this hidden nature of life’s meaning, even though at once we also believe and act as though for us the opposite is true.

Confusing? How can this be? Are we not intelligent, rational, observant and of a higher order? Hey, we make mistakes but really it’s the other guy who is wrong and on the wrong track, right?! Isn’t that why we know better than Politics? Don’t we basically have what is important from day to day figured out? Is not our stress logical? What has our attention now, our focus, is important, right? Certainly, that butt we see in front of us could never be our own.

I submit that all is virtually diminished towards nothing, all for nothing, all needlessly complicated, all detaching, all dysfunctional, if we continue to insist on missing the obvious foundation of all that is each of us –the actual detailed voices of those who formed our best parts. Those voices are ours to hold or squander. This is a real and hidden choice that almost always gets lost inside our notions of living and survival.

In the years before my Mother and Father passed away, I master audio recorded their voices many times to preserve those details for my mind. I knew that just the clear sounds of their voices would trigger hidden memories and give me a sense of security for never losing them -the clearer the voices, the more effective the triggers. That is the thread of caring voice in our lives. Nothing is more consistent, more important and ironically more ignored.

Certainly, the crushing, every day realities, and the relentless trivial distractions of the justified and ridiculous stresses in our lives make it almost inevitable that we take for granted something so important as our Loved One’s voices. It’s like air and water, they are essential in life, everything, but we give them little notice, until we lose them. Then we can only recall an image or an echo. This is true of many things but in the case of air and water, taking them for granted, can kill us. In the case of the voices of those we love, taking them for granted can actually keep us from living and also keep them from living forever in the highest level of our minds.

However, just listening once to their recorded voices, knowing we have them now forever, changes all that instantly and really forever. Those voices form and sustain us and are no less than the most important foundation of our lives. Loved ones, all their voices, make and sustain us like air and water.

What I finally learned was that extremely high quality audio recordings could keep personal bonds and healthy outlooks strong and could help keep our separations from those we care about -whether short, long or forever, from permanently screwing us up.

In the years that have followed my Parents’ deaths, my experience for this personal comforting value of these recordings has only increased, and I never cease to be amazed at how much those recordings mean to me year after year. They transcend the frailty my parents fought in their final years and their sense of ever present and increasing detachment, loss and worry. The recordings simply and irrevocably change all that in my mind forever. These recordings are a type of security for the brain never to lose connection with one’s self.

My brain just knows what to do with their clear voices preserved in this way. It just relaxes and gives me immediate perspective and comfort. In fact, that is true of the voices of anyone I care about and whose voices I get the privilege to preserve –the stunning effect on my mind is equally intense and meaningful while they are with us and when they are gone. “Goodbye” only intensifies the meaning of this hidden constant in our lives.

Periodically, while recording, my mother used to say some version of, “I am not sure why you are doing this, but it’s clearly important to you, and that’s nice.” I guess it was her gift to me in patience and for doing the recordings for so many years, after my Father passed. She clearly enjoyed doing them, but I still think she felt it was her gift to me.

Now, we can gift a group of fellow citizen constants, who we also take for granted, our Military and their Families, with capturing their voices similarly for now and forever. We call this initiative Military Family Voices, www.militaryfamilyvoices.

The Military and their Families use these voice recordings to keep their feelings of connection and relevance to their families clear and strong. We do these recordings for them in honor of their service to do the insanely stressful job of protecting our lives against no less than the world. These recordings help them cope and de-stress, in unimaginable circumstances -over and over again. That is whether they are active, deployed, at home, retired, discharged or Veterans. We give them a chance to use the voices they take for granted to protect and to heal them.

Our Military and their Families are all a brotherhood of vastly different people, fellow citizens, who are tied to each other, and to us, by the sure and necessary bond of our mutual safety. This is of keystone importance that transcends our political and cultural views. There is no rung higher on the ladder of societal bond.

Along their Military way, their lives, to perform this laudable job for us damages them pretty severely because of the brutal separations and the realities of relentless harms way.

It is a high calling of citizenship and a legacy thing to do, on all our parts –including yours, to reach out and help them preempt some of these dysfunctions, dangers and vulnerabilities for them and their Families. Preserving their Loved One’s voices for their constant comfort is so rare and fundamental to their personal wellbeing that it is transforming.

Sadly, the Military are generally not sure at first why we are doing anything for them, much less these recordings and for no charge. However, after virtually every recording session, they feel it, and after listening, either at home or downrange, they know what it means to their lives. They also feel the honor.

Let’s face it; these are stunningly wearying times for us all. In fact, the way everything tends to at once promise better and yet turn us from our potential is at least exhausting and more generally demoralizing. Add on top of that all the crippling realities of Military Service, and every tool we can give them to protect them is justified. How fortunate that we can help them in this immediate and lasing way.

Therefore, let’s get the clot of life’s interferences and obligations out of our face, and out of our way, for a moment, just long enough, to help our Military and their Families. You can help preempt some of their stresses and pressures –all strains on them that make our worst days simply look like easy stays at the spa.

Although they hide so perfectly in absolute plain sight, the voices of those we care about are our life’s true constant, and the greatest healing gift we can bestow upon ourselves and upon those who serve to protect our world.

We do this one incredible $ at a time.

Please join us, spread the word and do what you can. It’s your legacy.

www.militaryfamilyvoices.us

Because out of touch and sight is not out of mind!