A couple of years ago, my beautiful daughter was involved in a horrendous car crash when her boyfriend du jour decided that he needed to check his text messages while driving down a gravel road in the dead of the night.  He missed a curve and demolished his car against a tree.  The four kids in the car sustained only minor injuries, but the car was totalled.  When I saw it afterward, I couldn't believe that any of them had survived!

From that point on, I believed that cell phones were evil.  As time went by, and I observed so many people chained to their phones (in restaurants, while driving, etc.), I felt even more strongly that they were something we could/should do without.

Flash forward to the other day....

My son's friend, Jesse, who, two years ago, sustained a very serious head injury (compliments of a different country road and a different tree...and a lot of alcohol), washed up on my doorstep looking for my son.  Jesse was in a coma for three months, can barely walk, and can no longer speak without pondering (struggling for) each word for at least 15 seconds.  If you were to encounter him on the street, you'd think he was mentally challenged.  

He stood at my door, trying so hard to communicate with me that it broke my heart.  We were getting nowhere.  I couldn't make out what he was trying to say to me.  Suddenly he made an odd noise in the back of his throat and pulled out his cell phone.  His thumbs blurred over the keypad for a minute, then he held his phone up for me to see.

I was blown back!  Virtually unable to vocalize, he spoke so eloquently to me through his cell phone!   I would speak.  His thumbs would blur.  I'd read...wow! 

I'm rethinking my attitude....

(note to a friend:  I wish I'd been able to tell you this when you were writing your paper)