I wasn’t really prepared to post a blog entry today, but finally decided to write one at 10:49 p.m. last night when I couldn’t get my mind to slow down. As I was sitting at my kitchen table working on my laptop to create Web pages for another class earlier in the evening, I had a breakthrough. I FINALLY figured out how to get a single line of text to be a certain color (no snickering by those of you who are far past my skill level).

Just as I was getting the first successful HTML tags saved, my husband came into the kitchen. Totally unaware of what was about to come out of his mouth, I looked at him expectantly, practically bursting to tell him my news. And then he said it: “Mary’s Mom died.” You see, we recently found out that the mother-in-law of one of his best high-school friends had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The prognosis was not good, but never did we expect to get the news so quickly.

In that moment, it really hit home that no matter how far digital communication technology advances, nothing will be able to replace the power of the human touch. No digital message, no matter how accepted by society, can ever truly convey the emotional support behind a hug or the comfort provided by a friend’s presence—even if no words are exchanged—when you need them the most.

As I got ready to shut-down my computer, making web pages or posting to a blog seemed pretty insignificant when I considered our friends’ pain and thought of their toddler growing up without one of his grandmothers. But I prayed that the steady drum of the rain would wash away some of their pain and bring renewed hope for tomorrow.