[Tech Thoughts] When your grandmother makes you see the limits – and wonders – of technology

My grandmother Leticia was not a technology-inclined person, but she was strong-willed and kind enough to teach you things if you were inclined to learn something from her and willing to ask.

I remember one of the earliest things she taught me as a child was how to sew by hand. With enough thread and a needle, I learned I could repair a sock tear, or turn a bunch of unused socks into a makeshift rag.

Socks-to-ragmaking is a simple skill I learned quickly in the short sessions I had with her as a bored child, but it’s one I grew up forgetting because of all the new things I could do instead with technology, like talk to people on a telephone, or watch cartoons on a television, or play Tetris on a computer.

As time passed, and she grew older and less alert, the technologies we used advanced at a pace she may never have imagined. We used what tech was available across her lifetime to make sure her family stayed whole as the years went on.

She died at the age of 97 on Monday, May 11, at around 11:05 pm, with family locally alerted immediately through smartphone calls, Messenger texts, and Viber messages. Our family abroad was filled in by the time the funeral home’s team took her out of our house past 1:30 am of Tuesday.

We used Canva to touch up her picture for the memorial photo, and disseminated that announcement through clan messages and Facebook posts.

Because of current events preventing quick access to airfare back to Manila, Zoom was the app of choice so that family in the Philippines and across the United States could hold novenas for her until May 19, when she will be inurned.

Despite time zone differences, people attend the novenas to pray for my grandmother, to listen to a digital recording of my grandfather singing “Gaano Ko Ikaw Kamahal” to her, and to share photos and memories of my Lola Letty.

I have the faintest inkling of what technology will be like, AI and all, that will come in my lifetime. As I grow older and less alert, I may rely on the technologies of that time to do certain things that’ll let me maintain these wonderful connections I have with people.

But most of all, there may come a time that I will be a little like my grandmother, and I will offer any curious children — either my own or those of my cousins — the lessons of my life that I know I can impart to them.

Whether it’s technology-related, writing-related, or just a kind chat, I hope I can connect with the future in the way my grandmother reminds me of the past and the future now.

Perhaps we will have another generation of socks-to-ragmakers as well. – Rappler.com