Retiring the Computer

When Molly started high school, she was required to have her own laptop.     It was an exciting proposition – a requirement that you are happy to follow.  For her, I think it symbolized freedom and emerging independence.  For me, it heralded how different her life was going to be from mine, and how much she had to look forward to.  

In my day, we were excited about boxes of 64 Crayolas with the sharpener on the back.   The laptop offered Molly similar excitement and a lot more promise.

After Molly died, there was the question of her laptop.   As she left several handwritten journals, I did not sense that we would find any notes to us in the computer files.  And we have not found any.   But I also knew that a computer guru could probably learn from the computer…  her internet searches, downloaded files, emails sent and received.

I have hesitantly looked through the word files, but other than that I chose not to look for clues.
 

Instead, I decided to use the computer.  It has seen me through half of grad school, introduced me to Facebook, seen me through my first attempts with Skpe.  That computer has been a tangible tie to Molly while keeping me very much in this world.

And now I am retiring that laptop.  Frances gave me a new laptop for my birthday, and we both cried as I opened it.   A huge piece of me wants to hold on to Molly’s computer; like any treasured object, I loved using it everyday knowing that she had loved it and used it. 

And yet, knowing that choosing to live is often accomplished in very small – and seemingly inconsequential -  steps, I was excited about the gift.

I love this new laptop.  It is the first computer that is really and truly mine.  I am having fun with the wallpapers and the desktop gadgets and the fancy features.   But everyday as I turn it on, I am reminded that I am moving beyond the limits of Molly’s experience.

The reverse of that is, of course, that Molly has moved beyond the limits of my experience.  Computers are not important to her any more.  In that way, my challenges are not that different from those faced by any parent.   Children do move on.

I do not honor her by clinging to her life – I celebrate her by living my own.