How My Laptop Died and The Grieving Process

"The laptop isn't working." I could hear my husband’s voice through a deep fog.

Though it was only 10 p.m., I was asleep, worn out from work and holiday shopping. I mumbled something and rolled over. I obviously didn't grasp the seriousness of the situation. Otherwise, I would have started screaming and crying. That came later. While I snoozed, he got out the owner's manual and tried to fix the glitch. The next morning he told me nothing worked. I work from home and had projects due. I already was behind. "How long do you think it will take to get if fixed?" I asked. He shrugged. He suggested I be at the Apple Store when it opened.

I drove to the mall with my laptop buckled in beside me as carefully as a newborn baby. The technician behind the counter asked me, "So what's up?"

"My computer died, and my life is on the computer."

"Is your life backed up?"

"No."

I suddenly remembered an episode of Sex and the City, when Carrie's computer dies and everyone keeps asking her when she last backed up. She doesn’t know what backing up is. Why didn't I learn from her? "Well," the technician continued, my slender silver box between us on the counter, "what exactly happened?"

"A question mark keeps flickering."

He made a face and a noise. I knew it wasn't good. He opened the computer and started clicking. In seconds, he was ready to diagnose. He told me everything was gone. He couldn't get it back. The hard drive had failed. My chin started to crumble. I felt hot tears in my eyes. Every source developed in a twelve-year journalism career. Every story I wrote. Notes from half-finished stories. I looked at him for sympathy. He wore a red holiday T-shirt with a little ornament on the chest and an Apple logo on the sleeve. His bedside manner was lacking. He shoved a piece of paper with some phone numbers on it toward me. Data retrieval experts. They might be able to get some of it back, he said, but it wouldn't be cheap.