Chicago teen gets soundwave tattoo that lets her listen to deceased grandmother's voicemail | News & Observer

Just a month before her grandmother died, Sakyrah Morris got a voicemail from her.

“I love you,” her grandmother said on the voicemail in April 2015. “Happy Birthday.”

Since then, the teen from Chicago has treasured the message that allows her to hear the voice of her late grandma.

Now, Morris shared on Twitter that she will carry that message with her wherever she goes — literally.

“My grandma passed away my junior year of high school,” she wrote. “A month before she passed, she left me a voicemail wishing me happy birthday. Today I got that exact waveform tattooed across my heart, and I am able to play it just by holding my camera over it❤️❤️”

She also posted a video on Instagram of her new tattoo in action.

That tattoo was made possible by Skin Motion, a company in Los Angeles that created an app allowing users to upload or record an audio file. Once uploaded, the app creates a sketch of the sound wave for that specific audio.

You can then get that sound wave tattooed on your body. Once it is healed, you can scan the design with the Skin Motion app, which will then play back the sound by using image recognition.

It was an opportunity that Morris said she couldn’t pass up.

“I had been holding onto that voicemail for what's been almost three years now and I got the idea recently to get it tattooed,” she told BBC’s Newsbeat. “I figured it'd be something permanent that would be across my heart to be more meaningful.”

So she began to look for the right tattoo artist to get the job done.

"They have a list of registered tattoo artists that are able to do this, so I found one that was near me,” she told BET. “After he finished the tattoo, I couldn’t believe that I finally got it done. Once he played the voicemail from the tattoo, my heart melted.

“I could not believe that the voice of my grandmother would forever be across my heart.”

Many people on Twitter were said they were moved by Morris’ tweet, which racked up nearly 70,000 retweets and 260,000 likes.

While others found inspiration for their own tattoos.

Morris told BBC that she appreciates the outpouring of reactions to her new ink that honors her grandmother.

“She was the most amazing woman, always helping people in the community and making sure they were OK,” she said. "It really made me happy to see what a positive impact my tattoo has had on others.”

“This is literally my grandma looking out for me,” she added on Twitter.