I just did a search in my address book for someone and came up with the address book entry for someone I know that died last year.
I was sad. I sat – paralyzed – for thirty seconds struggling to decide whether or not to delete the address book entry.
I realized this is a great example of an unintended consequence of technology. I was not particularly close to this person (they were a neighbor of mine) but I flashed back to a walk along our creek that we had one day while scoping out the location for a new gate that Amy and put up in our canyon. He was a nice but somewhat troubled guy that didn’t live long enough.
Those were memories I probably would have never had again if I hadn’t seen his name in the address book entry.
I decided not to delete the address book entry.