Ever since his wife Ruby's death in 2003, widower Stan Beaton has treasured the outgoing voicemail message she recorded on their phone -- so much so that he refused to change phone companies out of fear that he might lose it. It was the only way he could still hear the sound of her voice.
In December, the message was lost during a service upgrade, which left the 68-year-old Brit "absolutely devastated" and also "extremely angry," according to the BBC. So he contacted Virgin Media to see if they could retrieve it and -- with the help of nearly a dozen engineers -- they did.
In the video above, Beaton receives the news that the recording has been recovered. His emotional, teary-eyed reaction couldn't be more heartwarming.
"It's just a wonderful, wonderful sound that I thought was lost forever," he said.
This is sweet. @cse1960 has a similar story with her uncle and nephew, I think?
My dear brother, and his son who died. He'd kept his son's phone, and thought, after quite a while, that he might be able to have his voicemail message retrieved, so he could hear his voice again; the number had been shut off for quite a while. He and his wife had divorced after their son died, it was so sad, and he was just lost. He went to the sprint store and the nice lady was very kind, but told him it was not possible, but she looked and looked, and of course it was no where. She was so sympathetic. He said she spent a good forty five minutes on her computer, searching out various possibilities, always a dead end. She said there was one more place it just might be, clicked a few buttons, and poof, out of the speakers booms my nephews laugh and voice, HI, This is Taylor, I can't talk to you now but if you leave a message I swear I'll get back to you" (I think that's a quote). He cried and cried, the nice lady cried and cried, they put it on my brother's phone as his voice mail response, got it recorded on half a dozen places, saved it multiple times so it'd never get lost again.
He came back a few days later, brought her some flowers to say thanks. They had lunch, and one thing led to another, and they got married a year or so later, they've been married 12 years I think, happy as clams.
I love this story every time you tell it. I get those happy goosebumps reading it! Aside from the fact that your brother lost his son.
Post by MarmeeNoir on Jan 31, 2015 13:08:23 GMT -5
I need to find a way to get my voicemails saved. My old phone has some messages from my niece that I want to save elsewhere. When I upgraded I was told my voicemails would transfer and they didn't. I was devastated and bawling my eyes out at AT&T, thinking I had lost them. Thankfully, it was still on my old phone.
Wow, I didn't know the phone co. could retrieve an outgoing voice mail message. Wild.
My best friend had a message from his mother from the day before he died on his old school landline message system. He saved it. I don't know if he ever listens to it now.
I'm kind of glad I didn't have to make that choice whether to hit delete or not to my mother's voice. For a while I kept the voicemail from my sister at the hospital saying that my mom had died. I couldn't listen to it, but somehow I couldn't bring myself to delete it - like the time and date stamp should be saved somehow, at least. It felt morbid to save it but dismissive to delete it.
"10 people?!?!? That must've cost a FORTUNE!!!" <3
I downloaded my dad's voicemails to my computer right after he died, and saved them to a few locations, because I was scared of losing them. I've only listened to them once or twice, but I like knowing they're there.