Tech?NO.

I've been slowly putting things away which are hanging about aimlessly. They have come from the boxes packed up, when moving from the farm. For some reason, the files marked 'Family' didn't make it back into the storage box that go in the long, narrow, scrunch-down-to-reach-it, storage area upstairs at The Pokeaway.

So, in a quiet moment this week, I brought the whole thing to the dining room table, and took a few trips down memory lane. Those two files document family life as it was more than ten years ago, both for my own family and for my extended family. There was the composition my brother wrote, around the death of our mom, and poems by my niece about her. I found letters written by Mom when she was so bravely fighting cancer. There were little articles she sent along - usually writing on the back of them "I thought of you when I saw this."

I also found letters written by other family members. My oldest sister who talked about the puppy which was driving her crazy by leaving 'little packages' on the floor. My other sister, who talked about her daughter learning to spell her name, and talking out loud to herself "Next, I need eleven". (She has "ll" in her name).

And I found letters I had written about the dailiness of life with three young kids. Stories which I had forgotten, like overhearing my #1 son and daughter discussing whether they should run away. My daughter's vote was 'no', because "I love my mom and dad" and my #1 son conceded "Well, we could take daddy, and leave that mean old mom behind".

Of course, this all made me very nostalgic. I used up at least half a box of Kleenex. But it also made me think a little bit about how technology has changed our way of communication. We get letters instantly, and then have to decide if we are going to 'delete' them. In the old days, at least in my history, letters were preserved and read over again, and then saved to pass back to the writer, so the stories weren't lost. When this generation is gone, will there be a virtual box for the kids to take down, for going through old memories?

I don't know the answer to that. But I carefully packed up the file again, to be brought out in another quiet moment, when I have a new box of Kleenex.