Back in June, a Father’s Day newspaper article about a soldier who saw his 8-week-old daughter in person for the first time in an airport captured my attention. In an accompanying photo, the soldier held the infant in his arms.

The picture touched me deeply. It brought back memories of a similar scene that occurred at the Birmingham Terminal Station in the 50s. My soldier husband, returning from a year’s tour in Alaska, took our 10-month-old son into his arms for the first time.

The story related how the infant’s parents communicated through email and video chats from Afghanistan during the pregnancy. I found it such a contrast in how my husband and I kept in touch while he served in a somewhat isolated place in Alaska. We communicated exclusively by letter. It was too expensive for us to enjoy even one telephone call during what I have often said was the “longest year of my life.”

The infant’s mother featured in the article said she and her husband usually had a good conversation once a week if the connection was good. I have an iPad so it is not hard for me to imagine how wonderful it was for them to speak face to face.

To me, it is amazing that I can speak face to face with relatives here in the states like my son in Louisiana and my granddaughter in Fort Lauderdale. Because of the wonder of technology, the baby already knew her father’s voice when he first held her. She was comfortable in his arms. Also through that technology, her mother sent him plenty of pictures, including videos of the baby kicking before her birth and sound clips of her heartbeat.

In contrast, I sent my husband pictures of our son monthly, but the process was slow. Since there was no nearby place to get the film developed, I mailed it to a company in South Carolina for developing. As soon as the pictures showed up in the mailbox, I slipped them into an envelope and sent them via airmail to Alaska. If my memory serves me right, I think it still took our letters close to a week to reach their destinations.

My mother kept vigil in a Birmingham hospital waiting room when I gave birth to my son. My husband received news of our son’s arrival from a brief telegram my mother posted to him reading something like: “It’s a boy. Mother and baby fine.” (In those days, we did not know the sex of the baby before its arrival.)

He said when he got the word, he plodded through deep snow from his quarters to pick up the telegram awaiting him at headquarters. There in Afghanistan, poised at a computer hooked to the Internet, this modern baby girl’s daddy heard her first cries as soon as she made her appearance into the world.

Separation for military families is never easy. I am glad these days technology helps make it easier to cope.

Nina Keenam is a former resident of Baldwin County and Staff Writer for The Foley Onlooker.