The other day while looking for something in a drawer that I seldom open, I came across an old cassette tape my mother made for my son a few years before she died. I’d forgotten about it around the time cassette players gave way to our digital age, and so I haven’t heard it in years. After looking for an old player that would accommodate the nearly obsolete technology, I slipped in the tape and voila! there was my mother’s voice, a sound I haven’t heard for such a long time.

It was, of course, a bittersweet moment. She had a lovely voice and since this tape was intended for my handicapped son, a child who even then she knew wouldn’t progress past the functional level of a toddler, she sang a variety of lullabies familiar to him. She also told a few stories that I remember her telling to me when I was a child.

I’ve often attributed to my mom my desire to write stories. When I was very young my mother proved that while a lot of wonderful stories come from between the pages of a published book, that’s not the only place they can be found. They all start in someone’s head. Perhaps not surprisingly, my favorite stories were the ones that came from my mother’s imagination. The pictures her words drew in my mind seemed every bit as detailed as the full-color illustrations in books bought in a store.

Ever since then I’ve longed to transfer pictures from my own imagination to others. Discovering the lost tape reminded me why.

One last note about my discovery of this tape. While I was listening to it, my husband was out running an errand. He called to let me know there was a beautiful double rainbow in the sky, so I ran out to see it. I went back inside with a smile, thinking God still sends messages in rainbows. With perfect timing, He was reminding me I’d see my mom again someday.