Speed Dial

Why Can't I Delete Old Numbers?

There are two phone numbers in my Favorites list that I haven’t needed for many years.

The first is the direct number to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at a local hospital.

The other is my mom’s phone number.

The NICU made the list because, in 2012, my twins were born six weeks early and had to stay there. Cooper came home after ten days but Crosby needed an additional month. During that time, I was pulled between a newborn at home, a newborn at the hospital, and an energetic toddler bursting with three-nager angst. When I couldn't physically be at the NICU, I called to check in. Constantly.

God bless those nurses. Warrior angels, every one of them.

The five NICU weeks were so hard. Maybe the hardest. I’ve never been so tired, never felt so raw and stretched, never been so disconnected to life outside of my house, but so present inside. Time moved differently then. I didn’t think about the future or the big picture, only about the next hour, the next feeding, the next nap. I savored quiet and stillness in ways I haven’t since.

Eventually Crosby came home, and I no longer needed the NICU phone number. But I still can’t give it up.

I worry that I’ll lose those memories. My recall of that time is covered in such dense fog, it’s already fragile. Seeing that number among the phone numbers of the most important people in my life reminds me of how that season mattered, how it both pushed and humbled me.

I sometimes imagine going back to that time and calling that younger version of me. I’d tell her she was doing a good job and that everything was going to be okay, even though sometimes it wasn’t.

My mom’s number is also on that Favorites list. She died in 2016.

I used to speak with her on the phone every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. I asked her advice on everything, especially motherhood. She always knew exactly what to say, exactly what to do. She offered me truth laced with love and packaged in grace.

I miss her in a thousand different ways, but losing those daily calls was particularly devastating. There have been so many times I've wanted to tell her something funny the boys said or ask her advice—how to get the stain out of a shirt, how to handle a difficult friend, how to make peace after a fight with my husband.

But now she’s gone, and her phone number is out of service. But I can’t give it up.

It breaks my heart that I can’t remember my last phone call with her. I’m sure it was mundane and routine. I was probably distracted and didn’t say anything profound or impactful.

So maybe I'm keeping that number because of a false hope that I might get another call. I imagine a chance to say all the things I never said, to ask her the questions I didn't get to ask.

It feels so unfinished. Like her life.

I have no use for those two phone numbers anymore. My babies are long home; my mom is long gone.

When I see those names on that list, though, they take me back to a time that changed me and a person who shaped me.

But those numbers aren’t portals. They’re simply reminders.

Memories and love still exist without reminders.

What would it take to believe the heart is big enough, strong enough, to carry these things on its own?