Our oldest daughter has an email account that she uses in conjunction with her Chromebook. She uses her computer at school and for reading books, but just recently since the summer, she has also used it to communicate with her parents as she has developed as a reader and a writer.
Yesterday, I got an email with the subject line “love you. call.” with some emoticons as the subject of the email. When I read it, it made my heart skip a beat. There was an urgency to her message as well as an invitation to participate in her day off of school. I typed an email back to her searching the emoticons much longer than I’m sure she did, and then called.
When I called, she immediately asked to see her brother, but I wasn’t offended by that. She wanted to check on him and see him. She wants to be a part of his life, and so she used technology to reach out to him via me. It really is pretty amazing to be a parent in this day and age when your eight year old can contact you and you can see her from two and half hours away, especially when you are sharing kids.
It’s really easy in the midst of all that we have to get done everyday to forget the simplicity of saying, “love you” to the people we care about the most. It’s even easier to forget the power those words can have in overcoming miscommunication and distance and differences of opinion.
Call and connect with those people you love. It will change your day and transform you and make you a little more human in the midst of a world that is much too often harsh and inhumane.