Christmas In May - New Cell Phones

Rob and I first got cell phones when I was expecting Anna back in 1996.

Rob was a student at Duke Divinity School then and we knew I would need to contact him when 

I was in labor so he could come home

(or meet me at the hospital as it turned out to be).

We broke down and got the phones we had said we wouldn’t waste money on getting

so I could call him and tell him that his baby was on her way.

And it worked well when the time came.

In fact, it was Rob’s very first day back in class from summer.  He was in a class that was in a downstairs room in those buildings at Duke that are built with those gorgeous stones.  The cell signal in those buildings in 1996 was almost non-existent,

especially with that beautiful stonework and in the lower levels.

But I still got through to him on the first try.

That never happened again.  He always had to go outside or at least close to an upstairs window to call me every other time other than the day that I was in labor with Anna.

I always called that one a God smile!

So yesterday, as my children and I were all getting new phones

for the first time in 3 years,

I was thinking 

about how it had really come full circle.

See, it was in this same town where my children and I got our phones yesterday

that Rob and I first got phones 19 years ago.

The building where we got our phones then

was not far away from where we got our phones yesterday.

Our cell phones are in my name only now

and have been since not long after Rob’s death.

But, for some reason b/c I don’t want to change phone numbers,

his name cannot be removed from part of the bill.

(At least that’s how they’ve explained the fact that every single month, I have to see my dead husband’s name on the itemized part of each phone number’s details).

So, as I saw Rob’s name pop up on the bill yesterday,

it immediately made me think back to the day

when Rob and I sat (with me very pregnant) in that phone store

and signed our first cell phone contract.

We were so excited.

Not excited so much about getting phones.

They really were just phones back then.

We were excited about what those phones represented.

Those phones represented our future.

They represented the day our daughter would make her way into our world.

And it made the fact that I was going to have a baby a little more real to me

and definitely made it more tangible.

We talked about our daughter the whole way back home that day.

It was a happy time.

That yesterday’s time in a phone store

-with that little baby girl who is now 3 months away from 19 years old

and who has finished her first year of college-

brought back to mind.

It did not make me sad.

It was fun to remember that day.

It was fun to remember that aspect of the waiting for Anna’s birth.

It made me smile.

For it made me mindful and thankful that God has provided for me all along,

even down to cell phones.

He provided 19 years ago when Rob and I first got phones.

He provided when the phone call got through to Rob when I was in labor.

And He provided now for me to make good on what was really part of Christmas 2014.

New phones for all of my children and me.  

And He also provided the prompt to write down the memory for Anna to read

about how her father and I planned for her arrival

and were so thrilled to even just think about that day!

I can’t say that I’ve had much fun in cell phone stores since then.

In fact, my record time in one is 5½ hours

when I was getting new phones, switching our address,

and having to do all of the paperwork of switching

everything over from Rob’s name to mine when he died.

That was miserable!

But yesterday was fun.

Watching my children pick out and receive and play with

their new phones yesterday was fun.

And, even though I’m not going to write down who it was,

it was fun to notice which child of mine said thank you first!

The process of getting 4 new phones and switching

everything over from old phones to new ones

did take a while – almost 3 hours –

but it was a fun wait.

Anna actually used their internet to do some research

for one of her summer college classes that has started.

Luke just played.

And when I wasn’t discussing with the representative

the amount of money that was going to leave my bank account 

for everything in this basket,

Wesley and I took selfies and such.

It was a fun day!

I was blessed with watching my kids' faces light up and smile 

over and over for the entire day as they played with their phones!

And lastly, as I'm learning to work my new phone, 

I have been going straight to the experts...

...the 3 experts that I happen to have given birth to!