Today I was thinking of writing about my other grandmother, Grandma Doris. In the midst of this endeavor, I became distracted by cleaning up my cell phone contact list. I realized that I still had Grandma's phone number stored. I stared at it. I had run into this problem before. First, when a friend passed away in college. Then, when my Grandma Nore died. It seemed so strange to look at the phone numbers and think that if you dialed it, no one would answer the phone. This time, nearly a year has passed, so the concept is not as strange. And I am lucky to have only faced this situation a few times.
I think Grandma Doris used to cross people out in her physical address book, with a note that said deceased. It seems too final on a cell phone. When you delete the contact, there is no proof that it ever existed. No name crossed out. It just disappears into the ether. I did it finally, again this time. The last two times I left them for awhile after I realized they were still there, but eventually I removed them too. It is just a phone number after all. But still it seems almost disrespectful. More evidence of the change technology places on the world. Would I rather have an address book with a record of all the people I had ever known and lost, or simply lost touch with? Maybe as I get older I will wish I had that record. But a cell phone does not hold my memories.
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