Printing of the letters

I have this folder labeled 'Print' in my old email account.

I used to print email letters that I received from people, to save them in paper copy as if they were real letters, not just cyber letters. But in recent years I haven't been keeping up with the printing and it's been hanging over me. But just tonight, as I was getting ready to start working, it came to me that I should print those letters. Partly because I realized that for the first time in my life, I have access to absolutely unlimited and free printing on the graduate floor of the Music Library.

When I found the Print folder in my email I realized it had several hundred letters stored in there, dating back four years or more, but I plunged in like I was digging the old high school clothes out of the storage bag for the last time. Opening them one by one, I did a once over for relevancy and mostly opted to print them all.

What a rewind through my personal life!

Looking back and seeing the written words of the most important people in my life, my parents, my siblings, my friends, girlfriends, singing buddies... going to Georgia... before going to Georgia.... And all the most important events chronicled, elaborated, philosophized. I realized that I was going to come to a section of letters that flurried across cyber space around the time of my father's death in the fall of 2004. I didn't actually realize this, but it was somewhere in the back of my head. But an amazing thing happened.

Someone called me, and while we were on the phone, I mechanically continued to click through the messages, printing them and closing them; "View Printable Version" "Print" "Okay" "Close" "Next" "View Printable Version" "Print" "Okay" on and on... it went for a couple of minutes.

The telephone conversation didn't need strict attention you see, and I could actually focus better on the conversation while mindlessly clicking the buttons in front of me. When the conversation was over, I wanted to see how many letters were left in the folder. I was a couple hundred short. But I realized that I had unwittingly clicked through the exact series of emails that surrounded the time of my father's worsening condition and his death while on the phone. This can't be a coincidence; tonight is somehow not the night for me to read through that chapter in my biography. It will be printed for a future time, and meanwhile, I grin through a silent prayer to Phil, who is looking out for all of us tonight, and especially me. :)