442-3825 has been been on my speed dial for as long as I’ve had a phone with that feature.

Good times and bad, busy times or slow, those digits have been a quick link to the Butler home base.

Across the connection went news of marriages, divorces, births, deaths, relocations, drafts and enlistments, discharges, graduations, promotions, firings, retirements – the myriad of events that merge to define our lives.

On one end of the line was someone with news, or looking for advice, or just wanting to chat a while.

On the other was a parent or sibling or in-law ready to hear the caller out.

That may give you some idea of the feeling I had as a recording told me this week that 442-3825 is no longer in service.

“No longer in service” says so much.

Both parents are now gone.

A sister who has been living in the family house, which made it still the family home, decided to move.

A buyer has been found.

The house, as well as the phone line, is no longer in the family service.

Families, of course, go through these transitions.

Losing parents, no matter the circumstances, is jolting to most of us.

It suddenly puts our own mortality front and center on the horizon.

And having siblings scattered about the globe changes how we think about family events and gatherings.

Sometimes such passages are pushed into the emotional background, making them easier to deal with and easing the next step along life’s path.

But sooner or later, we all discover that something taken for granted in our lives is no longer in service.

In this case, a confused moment followed before dialing a cell phone number and moving on.

That, perhaps, is as it should be.

I suppose I thought 442-3825 would go on forever, sort of like Pennsylvania 6-5000. But’s that’s a whole other story.

For now, this keyboard’s no longer in service.

Merry Christmas.