Last night we experienced a death in our family–a lifelong friend. It was not unexpected–in fact we were informed last fall that this death was inevitable–a chronic condition. We tried to prepare ourselves, but you don’t really know exactly how it will be until it happens.
Only Brenda and I were able to be there at the very end–shortly before midnight. We somberly shared our last moments with our friend and said our goodbyes. We knew the end was near.
We watched in whispered tones until stillness and silence finally replaced the life that was. The brightness — now fully faded. The once jubulent voice — now silenced.
We’re not sure how our friend’s passing will affect us, but we know that our lives will never again be the same.
Of course this friend I’m talking about is our television. When we heard that the FCC was going to mandate digital TV broadcasts that would require a $40 converter box we decided as a family that this would be a good time to go ahead and pull the plug. We’ve rarely watched our 4 broadcast TV stations anyways (using our rabbit ear antennas!) and so to us it was a good excuse to stop altogether. We can still watch DVDs and catch the news on the internet. But we no longer feel the need to spend our time at the mercy and schedule of TV programmers and advertisers.
It’s important to interject here that we don’t expect others to get rid of their tvs and we certainly don’t judge anyone for having one — goodness, we’ve had one for all of our lives! And we may come over and watch yours someday if we want to see something really important! We just know that for us — at this moment in time — this is one thing that we need to cut out of our already hectic lives.
After we’ve adjusted to the death of our friend, I’ll blog again to let you know how it ends up affecting our family.
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(Note: since my original post we also decided to refuse offers to subscribe to NetFlix for the same reason as not having TV.)
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It’s been 4 and 1/2 years that we’ve been without a TV and we clearly made a good choice for us! We can’t imagine how there would be enough hours in the day with TV viewing added to our busy schedules. We know ourselves too well — the unlimited options would tempt us away from more important pursuits. The few shows we like can be checked out from the library or viewed online for free and that suits us very well!
My sister and I got a new TV last year some time. Today I found out that it is dead! The company will replace it if it is under warranty ,but otherwise it is up to us to decide whether to get it repaired or not. I told my sister since we don’t watch it much(or didn’t when it was working)that we should forget fixing it if it is not under warranty. I guess your family has started a trend! 🙂