Manchester, UK

I changed the ringtone that belonged to my son

Dear Delyara, My son had a particular ringtone on my phone. After he died, I kept his contact and the ringtone exactly as they were. Occasionally, someone else’s phone would make the same sound in public and my whole body would turn before my mind remembered. For six years, I refused to change it because doing so felt like admitting he would never call again. In therapy, we talked about how the ringtone had become an alarm for loss rather than a connection to him. Last month, I changed his contact to silent and saved his old voicemail messages separately. Today, I heard the ringtone in a shop. My heart jumped, but I did not reach for my phone. I breathed and stayed where I was. Healing has not made the sound meaningless. It has stopped every stranger’s phone from briefly becoming the impossible possibility that my son is calling me from somewhere death forgot to block.