A post on Facebook by a friend made me want to post about this. He woke this morning to find that a missed call was labeled from his brother. But his brother passed away a year ago. In that time, he hasn’t been able to bring himself to remove the entry from his contacts. I have it on good authority that he is not alone in keeping numbers from loved ones who have died. Because my dad’s number is still on mine.

My entry for the particular phone number in question used to be labeled “Mom & Dad.” It wasn’t until after my dad was seeing someone who moved in with him and the new girlfriend’s voice was on the answering machine that I decided to change the entry.

I’m likely getting the new iPhone when it comes out. Before I bother to move over any of my contacts, I will be cleaning up the list considerably. The decision is going to come soon if his number appears on my new phone.

We move on in so many other ways so soon. What is it about a phone entry that makes us slow down and hold on? Is it the wishful thinking that one day we’ll see a missed call? Is deleting the entry too much like letting that person vanish? Like accepting?

Do you still have entries on your phone of people you’ve lost? How long has it taken you to delete them? Was there something that gave you the permission you needed to do it?