Imagine 4,000 precious photos of you, your family, your friends, 3 years worth of photos. Gone. Why? Because you didn’t back up your photos to your computer or iCloud. This awful dilemma happened about three weeks ago. The worst part was, it was not even my fault. I did not break my phone, nor did I lose it. It was stolen.

Even after reporting it to the school resource officer, there was nothing that could be done. It was stolen in the locker room, so there are no surveillance cameras in there. I had no choice but to face the depressing fact that my phone was gone for good.

In fear that whoever stole my phone could hack into it and totally take over my life, I did the smart thing by shutting it down. However, that meant getting an entirely new, blank phone. Completely empty. No more contacts, no more pictures of fun times past, and no more exhilarating concert videos.

So, how does it feel? Let me tell you. Personally, I am a photo lover. I think that deleting pictures are like deleting memories. So to have 4,000 of my amazing pictures that represent memories gone felt awful. It was devastating.

It was that day that I realized how important it is to back up or keep safe all things important to you. I was naive enough to think that nothing so bad could ever happen to my phone, so I didn’t ever think I would need to keep all my photos in a safe place. Looking back, I constantly kick myself for not backing them up. If I did, I would have had all of my photos as well as my contacts.

I never found out who stole my phone, but after a few hours that was no longer my concern. The only thing I cared about was getting my pictures back, but because of my foolish mistake, there was no way to fulfill my wish.

So, moral of the story is: always backup your photos on your phone. You may not think that anything will ever happen to your phone, but I didn’t either. You will regret it if you don’t; I can promise you that.