"Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you," were the first words words spoken into a telephone. Alexander Graham Bell is said to have uttered these words to his assistant Thomas A. Watson who, standing in another room, was able to hear and respond to Bell's request. For his part Watson recalls the instructions as "Mr. Watson, come here, I want you", but whatever those exact first words may have been it set off a revolutionary change in the area of communication.
I remember touring a museum that had a large section dedicated to the history of the telephone. One of the exhibits challenged us to be a switchboard operator and see how many calls we could connect in 30 seconds. After we made our attempt we were shown a video of the employees who were truly superb at their job and as their hands flew across the board it was amazing to think of the volume of phone calls they connected and the number of conversations they brought together.
Mitch Albom, author of bestsellers "Tuesdays with Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" has a telephone play a role in his latest novel "The First Phone Call from Heaven". A line early on in the book caught my attention: "The news of life is carried via telephone. A baby's birth, a couple engaged, a tragic accident on a late-night highway--most milestones of the human journey, good or bad, are foreshadowed by the sound of ringing." My husband and I had a conversation about this very thought just a few days before I read Albom's book. We were saying that a phone call, and inversely the lack of a call, can greatly impact the way news of an event is received.
Two people we care deeply about living in two different places, in two different stages of life, had amazing news to share. One called us with her news; the other posted it on social media. When we received the phone call we joined in a celebration of laughter and tears where the inflection of her words and the tone of her voice added to the excitement and exhilaration of the moment. We will remember her call and the way she shared her news with us--just us--in that moment, and the rush of emotion that followed. Days later another friend had big news which she posted on a social media site. We were thrilled for her, of course, but what was gained in the quick transmission of the information was lost in the hearing of the sound of her voice as she shared her excitement. We missed the rush of wordsand what I am left to imagine may have been the giddy tone of her announcement.
Within moments of being on the phone with someone you care about you can determine their frame of mind. Their voice reveals their emotion, perhaps even betraying their current state. From there it's just a few questions and reminder that you are ready to listen and the full story comes forth--pain and all--celebration and all. Our voices bring out into the open our vulnerabilities. The way our voice shakes, rises at the ends of phrases, uses clipped sentences, invokes sarcasm, or gushes joy, no piece of information can be shared in quite the same way as our voice. Contained within our speech are the words spoken aloud along with those not being said but which can be heard because of the emotion contained within the delivery. When we speak there is less place for us to hide and that's a good thing, because the people we need and want to share the information with are not just interested in the news of the moment but in walking the journey of what that news will bring.
If you haven't spoken to someone in a while a phone call can be filled with all kinds of information and updates but often within the course of that call words are shared that indicate "it is so good to hear your voice."
We have at our disposal remarkable methods to communicate. They are convenient, instant and easy-to-use. But not all bring about the same feelings of connectedness. In the same way timbre impacts the sound of a musical tone, tone affects the fullness of the spoken word. It gives us the complete picture and all the emotion that is packed within those expressed words. So as we mark the moments of our life that cause us to reach out and draw in all those who will be part of what comes next, remember that nothing can add to the magic of that moment quite like the sound of the voices of those you love. That's my outlook.
