Memories lost in a cell phone

My Motorola Razr went on the blink on Saturday.  Stacy and I had worked late, then we used the spa on our pool for the first time with the heat set at a mild 94 degrees on a 75 degree evening.  It was wonderful!  We spent two hours in there, enjoying a cold beer, and even dinner when Ramsey brought us spaghetti “table side”.  My cell phone sat on the limestone coping, and it seems it may have absorbed enough water to take out the screen and voice.

The next day, I brought the phone to a local phone store that fixed my phone once before.  Since that time, I have broken off the corner of the case, broken off the cover for the battery, and cracked the screen.  But I love the phone, and figured I’d look at replacing it when it really went on the blink.  So, when he told me that he could attempt a $45 water cleanup but with no guarantees, I figured it wasn’t a big deal except the 500 phone numbers stored on it.  It was time for that replacement.

Then on Sunday night I panicked when I realized Robynn’s voice was recorded in two short blips while at the hospital, and I have pictures of her taken the day she died.  I brought it back in first thing this morning, and the tech told me he’d do everything to get it going.  With memories on cell phones as potentially significant as those on our laptops, “backing up” our cell phones seems as important.

But backups won’t recover a saved phone message that cell providers drop after a certain period of time–as Julie heartbreakingly learned when her saved message from Robynn requesting Julie’s assistance to break out of the hospital was erased.  If I had only thought of that fact, she could have found a way to save that message permanantly.  🙁