The other day I heard someone use a word to describe her emails that I had never heard before…precious. She said they were her precious treasures. Huh. Really? Aren’t they JUST emails? Messages? Does email mean something else to people other than I thought? What am I missing?

Well, her father had passed away a few years ago, and she had all the emails that she had exchanged with him. She said it was like a photo album. It is something that she cherishes, and it has such sentimental value. Real value.

What if they were lost? Or just some of them lost? It is just data, after all. What a loss that would be! Unthinkable. Precious treasures, precious data. Those sentimental things in our lives aren’t just tangible items anymore…items we go through great pains to take care of…to hold on to. They are those electronic photos, videos, and messages that we have sitting on our computers and in our homes.

Oh, wait-a-minute, my emails AREN’T on my computer or my home. They’re out there. Floating in a cloud somewhere. In someone else’s hands, someone else’s care. Someone who doesn’t really know how precious those emails are to me.

Let’s get them archived and backed up. Let’s preserve those precious memories.