Looking back now, I can say that it all started when my grandmother received her first iPad. 

It wasn’t planned, not at all. In fact, I can’t even remember why she had the iPad at all. Certainly she had no use for it. She continually insisted that she’d been born in the wrong year for such ridiculous technology. And certainly she didn’t need a gadget to fill her days. Smart and creative and compassionate, she found plenty to do at her assisted living facility—bingo tournaments, funny money auctions, chatting with friends, taking the bus to go shopping, and even organizing a Monopoly club that held all-day competitions every Saturday. I can only imagine how she’d stared bewildered at that thing, wondering in what part of her life she’d ever need it.  

But it occurred to me that the iPad might have a use after all. And so, one evening, I sat down with my own iPad—itself a recent gift—and fired off a WiFi-enabled iMessage to her Apple email. I remember that first text was short and sweet. Just a note to let her know it was me and to suggest that perhaps, from time to time, we could use our iPads to text each other. 

It was an attempt, on my part, to brighten her days. Little did I know that I was the one who would benefit the most. 

Her response to that first text was quick and ecstatic. Yes, she’d love to text; yes, she could figure it out on her iPad, although could I maybe help her find where the punctuation was? And so it began—a conversation that, for all intents and purposes, didn’t end for eight years. 

In real life, I often found it embarrassingly hard to connect with my grandmother. Of course I loved her, and I knew she loved me with the strength of starlight. But her severe hearing loss made face-to-face conversations difficult, exhausting. Plus, despite our best efforts, the tension that plagued my extended family worked its way into our visits. Any attempt at in-person contact usually ended in frustration on both sides. 

But with the screen to bridge our gap, with the typed words to translate our hearts, I suddenly found myself connecting with my grandmother on a level that I’d never before imagined. Our texts became a daily practice, a part of my life so established that even my cell phone suggested “Memaw” to me as my top contact. At school or at work, others would sometimes glance curiously at my phone. “Who are you texting?” 

“My grandmother,” I’d reply confidently, smiling at their slightly bemused expressions, reading the questions in their eyes: Does she know how to text? Do you have anything in common? Are you talking to her about me?

The answer was yes. To all three.  

Oh, we never lacked things to talk about. Sometimes she’d write voluminous accounts of her life at the assisted living facility—anecdotes about her friends, descriptions of their activities, the latest update on the little dog who lived with the woman down the hall. So fluffy and cute! And she walks him around the halls in a stroller! Other times, she’d suddenly surprise me with a fanciful bit of family legacy. Did I ever tell you about my cousin who joined the circus? Did you know that my grandmother lived with her train-conductor father in a train car for part of her childhood? You would have loved my Aunt Jo. Do you remember me telling you about when she… 

But one thing was always the same about her texts: her yearning to know my life as if she were right beside me. And I tried to give her the experience. I shared far more with her than with all but my parents and my very closest friends—details of my latest hobbies, accounts of my days at work, the antics of my pets and the concerns I had about my future and even secondhand stories I’d heard others tell. Soon, I became a story scout, searching my days for material to send to Memaw—anything funny or serious, unusual or beautiful, that might make her laugh or pique her interest or tug on her heartstrings. And it wasn’t long before I was including more media as well—photos of lovely sunsets and interesting frogs, selfies from hikes and videos of bugling elk in Colorado. She responded with delight, sharing them around the assisted living facility until I wondered if the other residents were absolutely sick of hearing about “Georgia’s granddaughter.”

But our conversations ranged farther and wider than just our personal lives. I was shocked, in a process that often felt like a reintroduction to my grandmother, to learn just how intelligent and philosophical she was. She could converse about politics and poetry, history and hot topics, sports and science with equal ease. We frequently discussed the inner workings of the British royal family—both of us staunch fans of Queen Elizabeth, both of us slightly in love with Prince Harry. Another popular topic was current events—we’d share some news story and then weigh in with our opinions. We talked often of our shared Irish heritage, the Emerald Isle that lilted so lovely through our minds—celebrating together the liturgy and legacy of the country that was in a mysterious way the heart-home of our whole family. And of course, there were funny moments as well. I’ll never forget the day Memaw confessed that she’d taken to watching golf—a shift in her interests that surprised me until she revealed her true motives. Rory McIlroy is playing in this tournament, and oh, he is so cute! Curly hair and rosy cheeks and the sweetest eyes. A true handsome Irish boy. 

Over the years, we expanded to other shared activities, creatively bridging the physical space between us. Sometimes we’d watch classic Hallmark shows in real time, texting during the show to comment on the actors and predict the plots. After she expressed her fondness for Reader’s Digest, I acquired a subscription of my own, and the magazine became another connection point as we discussed the stories or swapped guesses at the puzzles in the back. 

Your texts keep me going, she’d say. They’re such a blessing. I love talking to you. I’d just smile and shrug off the praise. She didn’t know that she was blessing me too, that I was discovering a woman who was far more than a grandmother. She was a friend. And sure, I’d often groan good-naturedly when her texts pinged insistently during a meeting or when her definition of a “delayed response” meant anything over an hour.  But at the same time, I couldn’t imagine a world where her texts—frequently the only ones I received in a day—didn’t light up my phone screen, bringing love and laughs and a look behind the curtain of her complicated life. 

It was the texts that held us together, and so it was the texts that let me know she was drifting. It happened so suddenly—one busy week in September when I blinked my way up from an overload at work to realize that I hadn’t heard from her in two days. The pattern stretched longer, the time slipping slower between our messages, her words much shorter than before. I knew I was losing her, but I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, believe it. Not when she complained of confusion. Not when she quit responding to nearly all of my messages. Not when the doctor began to speak of dementia and Alzheimer’s. No! I argued—with the medics and the world and God. This was my grandmother—the wise and witty woman with whom I’d dissected European politics and economic developments and ancient history. No, her mind was better than that of most people half her age. It couldn’t be true. Could it?

I threw myself into our texting with renewed fervor. I tried to provide her explanations, to send her directions for tasks, to remind her of important events, even to soothe her fears when she began to panic over her own amnesia. But for once, my words could only reach so far. My precious pen pal was slipping away, and I began a grieving process that intensified each time I glanced at my silent phone. 

But then one day, in mid-January, my phone pinged again. Memaw! I dropped what I was doing and read her text immediately—a comment on a message I’d sent many days prior, desperately trying to spark a conversation, about the swans I’d sighted on the lake near our house. For the rest of the afternoon, it seemed a last lucid ray penetrated the dark clouds in her mind. We talked about the swans, the events at the assisted living facility, and the snow predicted for the next few days. Finally she ended with her customary love you!, and I sent back: I love you too!

Those were the last texts we exchanged. I’ve read them a hundred times, of course, looking for her personality between the lines. Even now, when she’s gone above those dark clouds to where the Son shines brightly, I keep expecting my phone to blink, keep expecting to see her words. What have you been up to today? There is a new resident here. Her name is Maggie, and we are trying to decide if we are going to let her join the Monopoly club. Did you see the article about the raccoon on page 37 of Reader’s Digest?

But even as I know that this is the end, that all has been said, I know our last messages are fitting, the kind of goodbye that only a great Author would have written for us. I’m so glad our final words were I love you. 

Because from the time we exchanged those first texts so many years ago, that’s what we were really saying all along.