There's something curiously intimate about a text message, or at least about text messages from one's kids when you are 2,500 miles apart. The compressed language, the tiny screen, the speed of communication, the unpredictable timing of the chime announcing you're in touch -- I don't know what goes into it, but it's nice. Long travel day home.

Comments

[Elizabeth Wheaton]

Maybe so. But your kids will never be able to pull out boxes of them and reminisce when you're gone, as my nieces and I did this week after my sister died. She must have saved every scrap of paper the girls ever wrote upon--notes, letters, drawings, handmade decks of Old Maid cards, school Valentines...

And then there were the photographs. It never mattered if they were out of focus or just plain ugly, they were just as cherished as the pretty ones you'd want to send to your friends.

It took the better part of two days to go through them all. I can't imagine that any formal memorial will make a more lasting impression on those young women. Or her not so young sister.

Save everything you can, Ed. "We found another box!" may be the sweetest words your loved ones will hear when you pass on.

[Ed Cone]

Sorry to hear about your sister. I know those mementos mean a lot.

My wife will tell you that I save everything, and come from a family of packrats (it pays off sometimes). I still write letters on paper, too. But we do lose a lot of keepsakes in the digital age.

In this case, the electronic transcontinental goodnights replaced a phone call, not a paper communication. And they were documented at a blog -- not as permanent as a letter or post card, most likely, but hard copies of "gdnite luv u" wouldn't have reached my kids in a timely fashion anyway, and there's no way I would have gotten that quick "u2 gurl" back from my son before I got home, much less before bedtime on the east coast.

[Elizabeth Wheaton]

Thanks, Ed. I remember that photo of you and your sister. It is, as they say, priceless.

I'll be the first to confess that my un-thusiasm for electronic messaging comes from near-total ignorance. Heck, I don't even have a cell phone, much less one that text messages or takes photos. Now that I think of it, it would have been nice to have exchanged a few more "luv u"s with Kathryn while she was able.

Alas.