Jeff Keen

After 24 days of holding out hope that some troubling symptoms were curable, followed by 22 days of watching the realities of an awful incurable brain disease take shape, my mom died Tuesday evening. My dad, my brother, and I were close by when she passed on December 20th, 2016.

The 46 days leading up to this event have been heart-wrenching. Watching someone you love suffer and wither away before your eyes is an experience I hope none of you have to face. And if you’ve done that already: my deepest condolences from a place of unfortunate understanding.

I’ve been fearing the death of my parents since I was ten or so. I was probably more tuned into it than most thanks to my Mom’s sense of morbid reality — like when she reminded us during the Christmas of 1988 that we should talk with our grandmother in Australia because she “doesn’t have much time left.” And then reminding us again in 1989, 1990, 1991, and the next fourteen Christmases until she died in 2006. You’d think that after a lifetime of thinking about death, I’d be more ready for it. But who is ever ready for this?

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I’m 33 years old, and I enjoy talking on the telephone. There aren’t many of us left — my generation has fully embraced texting. Not just embraced, either, but essentially substituted all former phone communication with text messages.

I accept this as a reality of modern society when it comes to easily communicating with platonic friends. And in the cases of just needing to tell someone I’ll be a few minutes late, I welcome it. But with dating — especially in the early stages — I find text-only communication incredibly frustrating.

My attempts at talking to dates and potential dates on the phone have only been met with friction. I met a girl at a bookstore once, and we chatted for a while. She gave me her phone number, and told me to call her sometime. So I called her, only to have her say “Why are you calling me? Who talks on the phone anymore?”

I do. The 33 year old unicorn.

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