Steve Job­s…

You died near­ly two months ago. I am still writ­ing and stor­ing these blog arti­cles on a beloved iMac which is over 10 years old – thank you. In so many ways I haven’t moved with the times and yet thanks to Steve I have. I am for­tu­nate to have one of the larg­er Macs as my ‘big’ com­put­er – I am so not in touch with names that I don’t know what mod­el it is! I just know I was giv­en it by my pas­sion­ate Apple sons so that I could begin an online col­lege course in Jan­u­ary 2010 – I passed with a 4.0 grade point. That was a first for me! Thanks Steve.

My two sons have been pas­sion­ate about Apple and Macs for more than 20 years since a friend men­tored their pas­sion before the web was ‘the web’ it is today.

I remem­ber when my 17 year old old­est son was putting togeth­er an inter­ac­tive exhib­it for the Semi­nole Muse­um in the Ever­glades and I asked “Are you sure those ‘pad things’ will last?” I was refer­ring to the touch pads now used on all lap­tops! Of course they’ve last­ed but the exhib­it has been dis­man­tled. I don’t know if touch­pads were an Apple inven­tion but I feel it fits the profile. 

Didn’t I say there’s a lot I don’t know about computers?

Steve gave us all pas­sion and cre­ativ­i­ty and the desire to strive to reach his lev­el. Most of us won’t even come close, but we can keep on striv­ing and learn­ing and inventing.

One day I hope to have an iPad. It’s one of the few new ‘toys’ that I’ve real­ly want­ed. I see a lot of poten­tial for it as an edu­ca­tion­al tool, espe­cial­ly for chil­dren with devel­op­men­tal delays. I’m sure many par­ents have found it of great help – I’m just not sure that they don’t use it more like a video game and TV – it is a cheap babysit­ter after all. Tru­ly a shame because the pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less to real­ly help lots of young chil­dren I know. 

I am lucky that my sons have already giv­en me an iphone. I love to take pho­tos with it and Insta­gram is a great iphone app to play with. So in some ways I am current!

The emo­tions and tears I felt when Steve died are still with me. It’s strange to feel so sad about the pass­ing of some­one you didn’t know. No one at my school even men­tioned his name or noticed that I dressed in jeans and a black top the after he died – that was even sadder. 

But Steve Jobs influ­ences and inspires at least three mem­bers of our fam­i­ly to be the best they can be, in so many dif­fer­ent ways.

Belat­ed­ly — thank you Steve.