A Requiem of Sorts

It's funny how a simple occurrence in life could make you think of the waaaayyy bigger picture...

Last night, my cellphone died on me. It wasn't the latest, cutting-edge thing out there. It wasn't even brand-new when I had it. The phone was salvaged from my technically-challenged sister, who left it in the glove compartment of her car on a stifling California summer day. So, the display was broken. She called me about it, and I said it could be replaced easily at Greenhills. Since someone was going home then, she sent it to the Philippines to be fixed. It turns out it was more expensive to repair it there than the cost of the phone. So she had it sent back to Cali with our parents' luggage when they came over. Then I had her ship it to me.

I was the one who set it up when my sister first bought it. Did all the updates, backups, and syncs needed so that my sister would have it ready to go when she finally had her hands on it. When I moved to the East, I told her she could give it to me when she was through with the phone. She did... broken and all! So I looked at it and saw its potential. I ordered the new LCD, battery, sync, and charge cables. When they arrived, I put it up to date with the latest firmware, software, and apps. Even got myself some Bejeweled 2 to the delight of hubby and son. It was working just fine!

When my youngest decided it would make a good chewy toy, it endured. When I left it with the ice cream in my shopping cart, it still persevered. We even brought it to camp out in the mountains, and with it, I was able to update my Facebook account. For no apparent reason, I woke up yesterday and found a backlighted, no image screen. I thought," oh, no biggie." Just re-seat the connections, and it'll be fine. But it wasn't...

I re-assembled, re-seated, re-set, and re-cleaned every possible thing on that phone till 1130pm, stopping just to eat quickly, vent off, and do some chores. But every attempt was unsuccessful. Hubby said it might have reached the end of its functionality; after all, it had heavy damage already. I felt so bad that I almost cried and was tempted (more than once) to throw the phone till it shattered to pieces. Older son took it away from me before I did any more damage. He said it's not worth my anger. (They do know how I am when angry. You don't like me when I'm angry!)

We had to drive somewhere in the middle of my failed attempts, and I realized why I loved the phone. It was somehow like me. I had my share of damage and brokenness. But the Lord didn't give up on me. I had a reset and re-formatted faith (OS) and updated values (firmware). I acquired new practices (apps) and principles (software). I even had my new sense of fun- to the delight of my hubby and sons.

But sometimes things break, and people die. So today, I accepted that that's just how far my phone could go. And someday, I'll die. But between that and now, I will hold on and persevere. Through heat and cold, highs and lows, raises and falls...

As for the phone... Well, my hubby says a 3G S might be on the way if I'm good. :-)