Longing For Two Cans and a String

Day 221

Kindness is the age of facebook is sometimes a bit tricky. I'm sort of a facebook “lurker,” rarely posting but frequently snooping around on friend's pages. Today I saw that a friend, a teenager, posted that her dog had died suddenly and unexpectedly. I felt so sad for her, and it made me remember when she told me about getting him as a puppy. I usually make it a point never to comment on any of my “younger” friends' posts on facebook pages because I feel a bit as if I am a guest in their world whose presence is best not highlighted in any way. But I did write her an email telling her how sorry I was.

After I sent it, I felt odd, like somehow it was not an adequate response. So then I mailed a card to the family expressing my condolences. A card seems so much more real, something that the recipient can hold in their hand, and read again later if they want to. Or perhaps it is just an age thing. Maybe today's generation, raised on texting, smart phones, twitter, facebook and probably a dozen other methods of communication I don't even know about, does take as much comfort from sympathy expressed through cyberspace as people used to from phone calls and cards.

I'm not sure how far I will continue down the path of the virtual world of communication. I don't know how to text or twitter, but I use email and snoop around on facebook. My kids are 10 and 11 right now so I know I need to start getting up to speed on the sooner side rather than later. I suspect however, that no matter how much I learn to partake in the communication paths available in the 21st century, I will always long a little for the way it was, back in the day.