I still remember the stories my bisabuela used to tell me. I always loved listening to those stories while I sipped on my café, smelling the grass-filled air, seeing all the bright colors of the roses and orchids around us. However, there is one story that I could never forget. I sat down in her lap and I looked up at her, smiling, expecting one of her cheerful stories about the past, and how great it was to hear her low, soft voice without the deafening trucks, the distracting phones, and the complicated computers. This was no cheerful story. I could see her saddened face, her gorgeous brown eyes suddenly turning red, as if she was going to cry. “Macho, this is a story of when I was just a baby girl.”

It was the 1920s, she just barely four years old, playing in her father’s backyard. It was a beautiful rainforest, filled with majestic orchids, many small coquíes and scattered plantain trees. It was a windy day, the sky covered in dark, menacing clouds. However, my bisabuela kept playing, without a care in the world. She was just a kid after all, she didn’t have to worry about food, clean water or having enough money to survive. Sadly, as a kid, she would soon be placed in the worst position a child could ever be placed in. The winds howled louder as it approached. La tormenta, she would say. Back in those times, there were no satellites to see if there were any storms coming, you just had to guess if it would come, or die by missing the signs. My bisabuela’s father saw those signs, and in order to protect his family, he had to act. He took them to a shelter, where they were forced to squeeze in with a dozen more jibaros and families. It was a tight space, but it protected them from the storm that was about to come. The storm was long and cruel, but their Puerto Rican spirit would not be crushed, as they sang happily their national anthem and cultural songs. As the storm passed, so did their moment of effervescence, as they emerged from their shelter, only to see their paradise turn from a beautiful green shade into a dark, brown scene of destruction. It took years to bring everything back to normal, and even then more storms and hurricanes would come after that, but it truly changed my bisabuela’s perspective on reality, and it taught her the real power of nature.

Fast forward to September of 2017, and the very same thing happened to me. Hurricane María changed my perspective in reality. It made me see things that, even though it was cruel for me to know, made me learn and become a better human being. For seven long months, we were all forced into the darkness. Not a light could be seen from the satellites that had first warned us of our impending disaster. Our beautiful green shade had once again gone dark, and not a bird, not a single coquí, would be heard in the night.

After Hurricane María, I talked with my bisabuela about the experiences she had with hurricanes, and she talked about La tormenta, and how Hurricane María was much worse than anything she has ever felt. However, she said something that, to this day, I still remember every time I discuss about technology. “Macho, if not for our advancements in technology, we would not have all of these luxuries. So be grateful, siempre, because one day, another tormenta will come and take those luxuries away from us, and when that day comes, Macho, you must be able to adapt, and think about your familia, not about games and how popular you are in Facebook. Technology is there to help with our lives, not make them.”

My bisabuela is currently 97 years old, and she is still going strong and hoping to reach the 100 year milestone. My tia, however, was not given this opportunity, passing away at the young age of 40 and leaving behind her two children who are still too young to even comprehend the concept of life and death. Mi tia, may she rest in peace, couldn’t get the important treatment she needed for cancer. While technology wasn’t there to entertain me with videos or social media after María, it also wasn’t working in the hospital with worn-out, stressed nurses and doctors working endless days and nights to give my tia a chance to fight her cancer and get her life back.

My tia is in a better place now, her fight lost. But technology also helped us eventually get back up, and helped me be able to enjoy my bisabuela’s stories once more in her home, with my sweet, delicious café. Because it was those same deafening trucks that helped us clean the destruction and get us to our families quicker. It was those same distracting phones that got us closer to our families overseas. It was those same complicated computers that helped us communicate our situation to everyone in the world, and helped us say: “Yo soy boricua, pa’ que tu lo sepas!” Because even though we were at our lowest, even though we are still in this crisis, we will continue onwards, because our spirit cannot be broken, and we will use the power technology has given us to prove that we can be better. Make no mistake, we do not need electricity to show our real power, the power to cooperate and to show courage in the face of disaster and misery.

It is true, technology provides us some of the greatest innovations our society could ever achieve. It has made our world so much smaller, and gotten us much closer to every part of the world. Sadly, as great as technology has been, we have used it incorrectly. Now we focus on the superficial things, our popularity, the latest gossip and our “streaks”. I never really valued what I had until I felt the wrath of a hurricane, and lost everything that made my life. The darkness of my house was haunting, it engulfed me and made me feel insignificant. So be grateful of what you have, because technology has, is, and always will be a part of our lives, but one day, our own tormenta will come, and we have to be willing to part with the luxuries that technology has provided us.