When do you delete?

It is probably due to my growing older, but I find myself more and more being confronted by a dilemma that involves new technology and the natural process of life, or rather death.

A very dear friend of my mother, SA, passed away about two months ago. Her heart failed her one day before she was scheduled to perform a cardiac catheterization, basically when doctors bulldozer their way through the arteries leading to your heart, clearing away any fatty deposits along the way.

SA was just 68 when she died. She was babysitting her two grandsons when it happened. Fortunately they were asleep in bed. When she felt ill, SA apparently went out onto the landing of her apartment to get help, but collapsed on the way to knocking on the neighbor’s door. She was found unconscious by another neighbor who immediately alerted her daughter.

SA was a very sweet lady whom I have known since I was a child. She was possibly one of my mothers' best friends. She never had anything bad to say about anybody. Because she lived close to me, I often gave her a lift to my mother's house to share a Friday night meal together.

That is why I had her phone number in my cell phone: SA. 03-XXXXXXX. I would call her, and she'd come down and get into my car.

Then she died. And a few days later I was scrolling down my list of numbers and I saw it. SA.03-XXXXXX.

I didn't delete. And the number is still with me.

This is not the first time I have chosen not to delete. One of my mother's two phone numbers is listed so: Dad 03-XXXXXXX.

My father passed away five years ago. But that original format still appears on my home phone's led screen when my mother calls me from that line: Dad 03-XXXXXXX.

Also, a few years ago a childhood male friend of mine passed away from breast cancer after a long and tortuous journey. He lived in the US and sometimes, for the New Year and other Jewish festivals, we'd email each other. I still have his email: jxxxx@xxxx.com. I didn't delete that either. He is still alive in my contact list.

So now I ask you. When, if ever, does one delete? And if we delete a name from our cell phones, does death become even more tangible? Or do we just stop getting painful reminders of those who are not with us anymore? Perhaps someone should write a code of electronic ethics.

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