My mother was typical of her circle of friends in shrugging off the value of internet access. She especially saw little advantage to "getting online." She was a devoted correspondent with a large group of family & friends - barely a day went by when she wasn't dashing off a note, reading a fresh-from-the mail box letter from Kerry or Lorna in Audstralia, Ellen down in Texas, Peggy in Missouri, and all over the globe.
Mom loved going out to shop & was, to the last, mobile & eager to GO - online shopping had no lure for her. As for computer-based bill paying, she distrusted its security & she actually liked writing out the checks - a young adult during the Depression, she never lost a sense of grateful joy making out checks for this or that bill, knowing there was money in the bank to cover it.
What lured Mom onto the World Wide Web was the immediacy of discussion. She quickly grew to appreciate the easy sharing of ideas, opinions, insights. Within a week of venturing out into cyber space, she was hooked!
Not that it ever would have happened if she'd had to navigate the computer on her own. This was long before tablets made computing less daunting for many oldsters elders ancients - just a hulking big personal computer staring her down. But I had a vested interest in getting Mom up & running with computing - she was increasingly isolated. Her health took a beating when she was 85; although she recovered, Mom was never again spry. She didn't venture out of the house if the was the slightest possibility of ice.
Hardest for Mom was the loss of her compadres, either isolated in their homes or moved closer to adult child, or died. She was possibly the most social creature I've ever know; her circle of long-time friends was growing ever smaller, but her love of social interaction was as strong as ever.
Mom slowly evolved into embracing the internet, but once she did, became an online evangelist with a vengeance! She loved sitting close to me in the computer studio, cup of coffee in hand, and dictate or direct, as I transcribed on keyboard. She never did succumb to online banking or bill paying, never could completely get her head around carrying on a real-time e-mail discussion with her Australian granddaughter, but she DID take special delight in going online & ordering a custom designed flower arrangement - complete with small pail & measuring tape - from a Sydney florist when her #2 son opened a high-end hardware store in that beautiful city she loved so well.
While Mom started out objecting to the internet having any value to her, nothing illustrates how fully she'd changed that original judgement than the last week of her full & glorious life, spent in her own room right next to the computer studio, where she received a flow of guests & answered e-mail questions from the local college's psych students.
Although we'd been warned that she could sink into deep depression, that only happened once - on Thursday morning, smack dab in the middle of her last week.
Nothing helped - I sang her favorite songs & hymns, read beloved passages from the Bible, talked about Dad. No improvement. Then I suggested - "How about if I check on any questions?" Got a glimmer of a response, so I high tailed it next door.
Hit the mother lode! One of the students asked, "I believe that I have met the woman I will marry. What can you share with me about love & loving?" Mom swung back to her usual self, taking deep joy in fulfilling the young man's request for wisdom & tender insight. All thanks to getting past her objections to see the pleasures opened up through being online.
Some years later, I was working with my IT support (I have a past history of bad relationships with laptops). We were talking about how few older people back when Mom was alive were active on computers, how rare she was, how much that was turning around. I shared with him my favorite story of Mom adventures in cyber space - the tale of that woeful Thursday & how one e-mailed question turned everything around. Imagine my surprise to see a tear stealing down the cheek of my IT guy!
"I was the young man who asked that question - and I cherish & use what she shared with me every day."
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