Fingers on the Numbers

In this age of social media and shortcuts, there’s a tendency to forget the little things about people dearest to us, like their telephone numbers. We’re so busy having them on speed dial or a click of their name on a cell phone, that their telephone number is barely remembered, if at all.

My parents had the same phone for over fifty years. It’s the first phone number I ever memorized. That number was my connection to home if, as a child, I ever got lost. It has a lot of memories attached to it and when I dial it, I feel connected to a part of me that was left in New England when I moved to California.

There was a time when I had their number as speed dial #1 on my landline for a few years. Then after my mother died, I wanted to call my father from another phone at another location and I couldn’t remember the number. I dialed it wrong and some stranger answered the phone.

Hi, Dad.

Who’s this?

Michael.

Michael, who?

Dad?

I’m not your Daddy.

Click.

I felt guilty for not remembering the telephone number that identified me for such a long time. It’s then that I decided to not forget it anymore and to actually dial it every time I call it. And I do, with my fingers on the numbers, making the connection.

With my mother already passed, I don’t know how much longer, how many more phone calls there are with my father. After he goes, so does the phone number. It’ll be an end of an era, a closing of one of my life chapters.

I recently explained to a friend what I was doing, and she couldn’t understand why I wanted to dial each number when one click could do the same thing. She grew up with a cell phone in her hand and confessed she never had to remember a telephone number. It was always on her cell phone. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if she lost her cell phone and needed to call home.

When I told another friend, he totally understood. His parents are both passed, and with them went the family phone number. He proudly recited it, then wondered who would eventually be assigned that number, who would form a new identity to it.

Think about it...

Does it sound old fashioned? Silly?

Maybe to you, but not to me.

For me, the telephone number has a lot of memories attached to it and every time I dial, I fondly remember...

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