Hanna's mum died when she was 11. 25 years later, a stranger sent her a cassette.

This story discusses suicide and could be triggering for some readers. 

Hanna Neter was just 11 years old when her mother died by suicide. When someone contacted her via Facebook more than 25 years later to say they had a cassette with her mum's voice on it, she was suspicious. 

"Is it a scam?" she wondered.

Hanna, who works as a journalist at BBC Radio Sussex, remembers her French-born mum, Laurence, as being 'a real homemaker'.

"She was a gardener," Hanna told the BBC's Danny Pike. "She loved cooking everything from scratch. Loved being outside. We were always going on adventures."

Laurence died in 1995, at the age of 35. 

"I was the oldest, so I think my biggest concern was for my younger siblings," Hanna says. "But we were surrounded by a lot of amazing people, and lots of people came together to look after us.

"But it is hard. Eleven is so young."

Watch: What you need to know about Grief. Post continues after video.

A year before she died, Laurence had been interviewed by a friend of hers, Valerie Bradshaw. The two women knew each other through school, where their children were in the same class. Bradshaw was studying to be a teacher and was writing a paper about parental involvement in the classroom. Because Laurence often spoke to classes at the school about French culture, Bradshaw wanted to record her talking about her experiences.

"She was bubbly and a lovely mum," Bradshaw told The Washington Post.

Hanna with her mum, Laurence. Image: The Washington Post.

Bradshaw never forgot Laurence or her daughter Hanna. Just recently, she was tidying up and found a couple of cassettes at the back of a drawer. Thinking one of them might have Laurence on it, she borrowed a cassette player from a neighbour. She pressed play and heard Laurence's voice. But she wasn't sure whether to contact Hanna and offer her the cassette.

"I thought, 'Well, I could just throw it away, but I think I'd want to hear my mum's voice,'" Bradshaw told The Happy Pod. "I'd spoken to a couple of friends and one friend had said, 'Oh yeah, you should do it,' and another said, 'Oh, I'm not too sure about that, might bring up bad memories.' But anyway, I did it."

Hanna quickly realised Bradshaw was genuine, and she organised to drop around to her house, two young children in tow, and collect the cassette. When she arrived, Bradshaw asked her if she'd like to listen to it, right then and there.

For the first time in more than 25 years, Hanna heard her mother's voice. To her surprise, she didn't recognise it – she said it had more of a 'French twang' than she remembered – but just listening to it was 'magical'. Her favourite thing was hearing her mother laugh.

"People often say to me, 'Oh, that is just what I remember about your mum, her laugh.' And I love that bit. I love hearing that little giggle."

Bradshaw also showed Hanna photos of Laurence that she'd never seen before, including one of her dressed up and dancing the can-can.

The emotion hit Hanna as she was driving home with her children.

"I just turned to them and said, 'Gosh, that was quite mad for me, hearing my mum's voice after so much time. I'm going to have a little cry now.' And I had a little cry in the car."

A day or two later, Hanna tweeted about what had just happened. Before long, her tweet had been seen by more than a million people. Many shared their own experiences of hearing or seeing their loved ones after their deaths.

My mum died when I was 11. Recently I was contacted by someone on Facebook who interviewed her for her dissertation and had found the tape recording. So this weekend I’ve heard her voice for the first time in more than 25 years! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/G2wjMwP7jF

— Hanna Neter (@hannaneter) June 4, 2023

"We heard my late Grandad's voice as part of an exhibit when visiting the National Coal Mining Museum," one woman posted. "It was an interview they taped with him years before. It took us completely by surprise. They very kindly made us a copy and sent it to us. It's priceless."

"My brother recently found an old episode of Taggart, in which my dad was an extra – he died in 2001," another woman wrote. "It was only a couple of seconds of him walking past, but it was so lovely to see him alive again."

"We had my mum's voice on the answer machine," wrote another. "It was quite surreal hearing her. Sadly, the number went when my stepdad died a few months ago."

"Last week I processed a 35mm film that I found in the bottom of a camera bag," another woman posted. "And lo, a 'new' photo of my dad, smiling. He died in 2001."

"Dad died before I was two," a man posted. "I had never heard his voice. A Kiwi relative sent my sister a tape he'd recorded of my family on an old reel-to-reel machine in the '70s. My dad is on it. They all laughed because of how formally he talked on it but it was from the grave. It floored me."

Hanna was 'blown away' by the response to her story on Twitter.

"For this little moment, there was this little community of people that had lost people and were happy to talk to each other about it," she told The Washington Post. "That feels like the purpose of this."

Feature Image: Twitter @hannaneter/The Washington Post.

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