We stepped into her flat bracing for the worst—grime, clutter, some evidence of the chaos we’d always imagined. Instead, we froze. The walls were padded with soundproofing, the shelves stacked high with old cassette recorders. Dozens of them, each labeled, each holding captured voices. For a moment, it felt eerie, even sinister. Why collect all these sounds? Why torment us with noise if she already had so much of it stored away?
Then we opened a small box and found her journal.Her words pierced through every judgment we’d ever made: “I make noise at night so I won’t feel alone. My husband died years ago, and the silence crushed me. Recording voices keeps me company. Every laugh, every footstep, every shout reminds me I’m not forgotten.”
Suddenly, the “crazy lady” wasn’t crazy at all. She was lonely—desperately clinging to echoes of the life she’d lost.Later, the young man who rented our flat told us his secret: every morning he called through the thin wall, “Good morning, neighbor!” and every night he said, “Sleep well.” That’s why he lasted when no one else did. He gave her what we never thought to offer: kindness.
Her death left us shaken, but also changed. We learned that what we dismiss as madness is often nothing more than a plea for connection. And that sometimes the smallest kindness—a smile, a greeting, a moment of presence—can mean the difference between despair and feeling human again.