The Personal Touch

Sometimes I wonder how I would have been if I were a military wife before computers and cell phones. I've been with my husband since he was commissioned in the Navy (and before, going on 18 years actually!).  His first couple of deployments, well, they were difficult. Email was spotty, sometimes I would go 2 weeks or longer without hearing anything from him and a call maybe once a month depending on how long and where they pulled into port. His first deployment was just after 9/11 and so port calls were few and far between.  The first few days without hearing anything, well, they were difficult but I always had another spouse (or several) that stayed in contact and I knew everything was OK. Just that email was down. 

Fast forward to today, and though he is away from home at a class and staying in a "dorm" room, how wonderful is it that I can speak to him every day, and see him almost every night when his classes are complete!!

I am just amazed as I sit here at my computer, my cell phone plugged in (because it was down to 1% YIKES!) and we exchanged messages and pictures over morning coffee. This is how we celebrated my daughter's 9th birthday a few weeks ago, over google chat with camera.  Technology is positively amazing. Connecting families from one side of the country or world to another.  I'd have to say that it was the technology like this that helped me during our tour in Japan.

We were stationed in Japan for 2 1/2 years. Amazing experience but it was the longest I had gone without seeing my parents.  When we flew there, it was seriously a 30 hour trip with 2 young kids, one of which threw up as we landed in Tokyo (our 2nd layover) and the other who refused to sleep during the entire 14 hour flight and finally the last 2 hours plopped herself on the floor on the plane and fell asleep.  It was an emotionally taunting trip and i vowed to not do it again until I HAD to (i.e. moving again). It was not until 6 months before we left that my Mom flew out to meet her new Grandson (our "Japanese souvenir" as my husband likes to say.)  If it were not for instant messages and gmail's version of facetime, I think I would have gone coconuts. But my parents would get on the computer, we'd turn on our camera's and whala! connected instantly.  NOTHING compares to the human touch but when that is not possible, live camera feeds are an amazing option.

And so, I sit here with my coffee, thankful to be living in the time of amazing technology that will never replace the human touch but will make up for the distance we face too often.

Enjoy your weekend my creative friends!

♡ ąℓexąnʠяą