My grandmother's kitchen radio died last week and I heard her humming for the first time in 20 years

Jennifer Murphy · 2026-09-30T09:55:03.336431+00:00

Her old GE radio on the counter finally quit last Tuesday after running every day since I was a kid. I stood there in her kitchen in Akron trying to figure out why the silence felt so wrong, and then I heard it, she was humming while she made coffee. I never knew she did that because the radio always drowned it out. It hit me that my clearest memory of her house was a sound that was never actually her. What small thing about someone you love only shows up when something else breaks?

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My grandmother's kitchen radio died last week and I heard her humming for the first time in 20 years | Core Memory Talk - Thought Shares