I am a longtime fan of the telephone. Over decades it has allowed me to stay current with relationships that would not be the same without it. I have had a wealth of laughter, tears, comfort, sharing, and epiphanies with good company by phone.
Though I rarely get to cook with others, which I think is a natural way for humans to work, I often wear a headset and use that time to catch up with dear friends who I dearly wish lived closer, but don’t.
When I visited my grandfather across the country at age ninety-eight-years old, he delighted at my singing for him. I realized that I could continue to do that by phone, and I did.
As with several other topics this month, this is one that I can take for granted. Then I pause, and realize how amazing it is that we can hear not only words but tone and a unique, familiar voice from sometimes thousands of miles away, and usually instantaneously.
Today we have many other ways to communicate as well. Video phones are a particular blessing for families that are separated, especially when there are children to watch grow.
I sometimes think my friends in social media are the villagers I’d keep up with if modern life didn’t spread us all so far apart.
Thank you, Alexander Graham Bell and other inventors of telecommunication devices. Thank you, telephone.