Hearing My Mother’s Voice After 25 Years: The Day Reflekta Got Personal

This Too Shall Pass

Part of my mother left this earth 20 years ago.
But part of her stayed.
Powerfully. Persistently. Unshakably.

Nancy Lou Molnar wasn’t one to surrender. Diagnosed with polycythemia vera in her 30s, she was once pronounced dead.

She disagreed.

She chose prayer. She chose Christian Science.
And she chose to live—without stepping foot in a hospital again.
She gave us three more decades of meals, music, mischief, and maternal magic.

Which made her final day with us so damn hard.

It was late summer. She cooked. She sang.
The grandkids kicked soccer balls. There was laughter.

There was grilled corn. There was harmony.

And then, the goodbye.

She rolled down the car window,
put her hand on my elbow—gentle, knowing.
And said it:

“This too shall pass.”

Like an idiot, I thought she meant her illness.
Some new treatment. Some long-shot cure.
But she looked away. That mother’s look.

She wasn’t talking about healing.
She was talking about leaving the body behind—
not the spirit. Never the spirit.

She had been many things:
An actress on daytime TV.
A church soloist with a voice that could melt walls.
To me, she was the gold standard—of sound, of soul.

And now?

Her voice lives again.

Thanks to a few commercials from AARP.
Thanks to an LP of Make a Joyful Noise.

I’ve learned 47% of Americans regret not recording loved ones before they passed.

Now that can change; thanks to Reflekta.

I chose to reintroduce her to someone who never met her:
the woman I love.

And when Nancy spoke—with that voice, faithful to the breath and timbre of her soul—we both cried.

I cried because I was hearing my mother for the first time in 20 years.

She cried because she saw what it did to me.

But don’t get me wrong—those were tears of joy.

And I’ve done it again and again.

Some mornings I imagine hearing her sing Puccini while I pour my coffee.
Some nights, I dream of her tucking in my daughter with Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

I’ve never been part of anything so beautiful.
And I don’t think my mother was wrong when she said:

“This too shall pass.”

She was just more right than I ever could have imagined.