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Without ICE Numbers

Over the years I have had to fill out many forms that required local emergency contact information. Once the answer was reflexive - parents up to a point and then husband.

Today, I ask for time to get someone to act as an emergency contact. I may have moved to this new town and state not even a week ago. Reading about storing emergency contacts on mobile phones threw me into a wistful mood.

I think of the men who have professed love for me and then suddenly, unaccountably yet expectedly blanked out of my life, their number erased from my address book along with their place in my heart.

I think of friends gathered and scattered as I have wandered from place to place, names and numbers that remain but will likely be gone some day when I can no longer remember why they are still relevant.

I think of one name in my address book that goes back twenty years. Though many thousand miles seperate us, that would really be the number to call in case of emergency. I feel grateful.

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