A 90-Year-Old Alan Alda Woke Up In Agony At 2 AM. Instead Of Pills, He Reached For A Saved Voicemail That Will Break You
The house is completely silent, but Alan Alda cannot sleep.
At 90 years old, his battle with Parkinson’s disease is relentlessly exhausting. Tonight, the tremors in his hands are violent. His aging body aches.
Doctors have prescribed heavy sedatives for painful nights exactly like this.
But Alan doesn’t reach for the pill bottle on his nightstand.
Instead, his shaking hands slowly reach for his cell phone.
With trembling fingers, he opens his saved voicemails.
He scrolls down to a message dated from early 2025.
The caller ID simply says: Loretta.
Loretta Swit passed away a year ago. The world lost the brilliant woman who played Margaret Houlihan, and Alan lost one of his absolute dearest friends.
But in the dark of his bedroom, she is still right there.
Alan presses play. He holds the phone close to his ear.
The quiet room fills with her warm, unmistakable voice.
“Hi, my sweet Alan,” the recording begins.
She sounded tired when she left the message, but her voice was incredibly full of love. She recorded this during her final months, knowing exactly what her friend was going through.
“I know the nights are the hardest,” her voice whispers through the phone.
“If your hands are shaking tonight, please don’t be afraid.”
Alan closes his tired eyes. A heavy tear rolls down his cheek.
“Just remember that Margaret is holding them. I’ve got you. You are never, ever fighting alone.”
The message ends. The room goes quiet again.
Alan sits alone in the dark. His hands are still shaking. The physical disease hasn’t magically disappeared.
But the crushing weight of the fear is completely gone.
When you lose someone you deeply love, society tells you that you have to let them go.
But a true family never asks you to let go.
They just find a beautiful way to keep holding your hand from the other side.
Alan presses play one more time.
Just to hear the end of it again.
“I’ve got you.”
The Parkinson’s often makes his own body feel like a terrifying stranger, but Loretta’s voice instantly brings him right back home.
He remembers the grueling, fourteen-hour days on the 20th Century Fox lot.
The freezing Malibu nights when they huddled together in those thin olive-drab coats between takes, waiting for the cameras to roll.
Whenever exhaustion or personal heartache threatened to break them down, they leaned on each other.
Hawkeye and Margaret. Alan and Loretta.
Decades have passed since those days. The sets were dismantled long ago. The world has moved on.
But the profound, unspoken promise they made to always take care of one another remains entirely unbroken.
Alan slowly lowers the phone from his ear.
He places it gently back on the nightstand, right next to the unopened bottle of heavy sedatives.
He doesn’t need the medication tonight.
He has something much stronger.
He lies back down on the pillows, the violent shaking slowly softening as a deep, profound peace finally settles over his chest.
He closes his tired eyes, drifting toward sleep in the quiet darkness of the bedroom.
His hands are still trembling slightly.
But now, he knows exactly why.
It’s just the feeling of his dearest friend…
Holding onto them a little bit tighter.
