Which ones? I talk by phone to my elderly (84-year-old) parents once or twice a week, and e-mail them on the days I don’t, and write them a “real mail” letter once or twice a month, and see them in person, for an extended visit, at least three times a year. I talk on the phone to my one living “step-grandma”, age 95, about once a month, and write her about twice a month (unfortunately she is in an assisted living place with Alzheimer’s, so she doesn’t do e-mail). E-mail is great, by the way! With it, in the last five or so years that I have had a computer, I have had more contact with some of my aunts and uncles (a few times weekly) than I probably had in my whole life before that. And they are much younger with my parents, and I am unmarried and have no siblings, so they will be my only family after my parents die. So I truly do thank God for e-mail, because it is through it that I have renewed my relationship with my extended family, who will someday soon be my only family. And through it, I get lengthly “letters” from my mom on a daily basis, and know that they are doing fine, and that I don’t, today at least, need to worry about them. (On a good aside, my 84-year-old dad had his first colonoscopy today, and I learned from my mom’s e-mail that it went just fine, and he had no polyps to be biopsied, and I definitely thank God for that). And sometimes, I am even lucky enough to get a two-sentence note from my dad, all full of typos, but also completely full of his own words and personality. E-mail is definitely a good thing!
