My phone seems to be in a death spiral. Sometimes I touch the screen and it will not respond at all. I type things and it substitutes letters or ignores me. I try to open a photo and it jumps down and opens a different picture. Several times it has selected ‘DELETE.’ I panic and shut the phone off when I see that. I tried to take some pictures with it and it takes snapshots of the floor and they are blurry. It got really bad last night and I was at a Christmas celebration so I just kept it in my pocket hoping I could keep it alive until I could back it up.
This morning I started the long process of backup and troubleshooting. I got it to backup which was a relief. I ensured that all the photos were backed up in a different place. So now I can relax a bit and try to solve the problem. I contacted support and started texting back and forth. It was not going well. I would send lots of information and it did not seem that they were reading my messages as they would ask me about information I had already sent them. I told them my phone was working and ten questions later they asked me if we were talking about my phone. I dug into my phone and found the version of the software. I have 15.1. They told me I should be at 15.2. I began to pull out my hair. Before I contacted them I tried to get the phone to update, which it said it did, but apparently that was incorrect. I started the update procedure. I am watching the little update line crawl across the screen right now, wondering if this is going to work.
My phone has become an extension of my memory. It remembers things for me. I used to know lots of phone numbers. I still remember my grandparents number, JE5-8011. It has not been used for years. Now, I barely remember my own number because my phone has it locked in its binary code. I used to make scrapbooks of trips, now my phone chronicles each adventure and when I scroll through my images I am transported back in time to those beautiful frozen moments. I count on my phone to keep track of appointments and to remind me when they are coming. It sits up all night waiting to give me a nudge in the morning to wake up. Losing my phone is like losing part of my brain. Sometimes I hate how absorbed people are on their phones, but I understand how deeply we are connected to them as they have become an extension of our own memories.
During the early days of the pandemic, I scanned lots of my family and childhood pictures into the phone. Now it remembers things I have completely forgotten. Last week I pulled up a picture of my grandparent’s home to share with my cousins. Then,I saw in a shadow on the front lawn a picture of my Dad. I don’t ever remember seeing him in the picture before, but there he was. It was a beautiful greeting.
As we come to the end of the year, take some time. Try to remember the beautiful and the good. Try to forget the ugly. Don’t forget all that God has done for you.