Gone But Never Forgotten

Today would have been your 47th birthday Paul.  What a long time you have been gone from our lives; thirty years to be exact and boy oh! boy have their been some changes in the world.  Today being your birthday, you would probably be receiving greetings from all your friends on Facebook.  You’d have loved that!  It’s rather like a noticeboard where you can pin photos and personal messages, together with inspirational quotes.  Then you’d invite your friends to come along and have a look at your board and they would be able to pin up comments and tell you if they like what you’ve pinned up and they would do the same to you – invite you around to their homes to view their boards.  Only you don’t have to do any of that because it’s all done on the internet; on the World Wide Web and that’s a bit like viewing pages on a screen – a bit like telly only it’s a personal computer (PC).  You might just remember the Amstrad Wordprocessor; kind of like that only way better.

But now you don’t need a PC to use the World Wide Web –  you can use your phone!  No, I haven’t gone bonkers! Do you remember that massive housebrick of a mobile phone Dad had?  The one everybody laughed at and said it wouldn’t take on?  Well it did, beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.  Not only can you use the internet on your mobile phone, you can…wait for it…take photos! (you must think the world’s gone totally crazy since you left us.)

You loved photography and had one of those fancy SLR cameras.  You took some great shots.  Do you remember how we had to take the film to the chemist to have the photos developed having to wait in intense anticipation for about a week (I was always disappointed with my photos because my finger or the case strap had got in the way of a good snap.)  Well now photography has become digital which means photos can be stored, edited, manipulated and sent using a computer rather than photographic film.  And you really, really would have LOVED that; I’m sure you would be doing something very special using that if you hadn’t left early.

That’s just a couple of changes to our world in the last thirty years; it’s mad isn’t it?  You are still missed terribly but we have learned to live with the hole you left.    I hope you are looking down on our frantic existence thinking “no thanks, I’ll stick with where I am for now and I’ll meet you on the flipside”.  Happy birthday Paul. x