The Value of Connection in a Digital Age

Today I went to the hospital to visit a friend who has cancer, and her prognosis isn't good.  The reality of this disease is that in her case, it isn't *if* she will succumb to it; unfortunately, it is more a matter of *when* she will. 

That's how we know we value someone isn't it?  When we share with them in their highs and lows.  We visit them in hospitals and jail cells and in funeral homes.  We rejoice when they have babies or graduate from school and we cry with them when they are hurting.

In our digital age, it is easy to forget the value of connection, of human touch.  In our digital age, we send a text when we should show up with a box of Kleenex and some homemade cookies.  In our digital age, we send an eCard, or write on someones Facebook wall.  And it isn't that these gestures are without meaning; rather, they just can't replicate the significance of a good old-fashioned hug.  Of showing up and loving someone through their tragedies.  Of being there with a paintbrush and some Glad trash bags when the tornado strikes, or an offer to babysit for an overwhelmed mom, or even with cash in hand to cover a light bill when someone is having more month than money.

Showing up, not phoning it in.  Being there--to offer a hug, a shoulder to cry on, a hand up, a smile.  It is funny how in our digital age we have more ways to communicate than ever before, and yet, we are more disconnected than we ever have been.

I learned just yesterday that someone I once valued very much as a beautiful and brilliant man--of both science and spiritual expanded consciousness, poetic and practical in a way few can manage--well that man died two years ago.  Some say it was a suicide and others believe it was an accidental overdose.  Regardless, the world is the lesser because he isn't here, and the thought that he might have chosen to leave too young--that he somehow thought he wasn't valued, that he was so disconnected from others that he took his own life, I can't think of anything that could possibly sadden me more.

I guess the point of all of this is this:  Be there, in the flesh, for those you really love.  The only thing any of us know for certain is that there ain't none of us getting out of here alive--so take the time while you have the time to let those you love know you love them.