Over the last several months, we’ve been visiting my mother more.

A die-hard coffee drinker, she believes her brew should be piping hot and rich in flavor. My husband jokingly said once that he’d never tried meth, but he bet it had the same first taste jolt as my mother’s coffee.

And as if that wasn’t enough, she could drink it any time – day or night. I guess she’d conditioned herself that she was immune to the caffeine. She swore up and down she’d never make the switch to decaf coffee.

Never is a long time, and she proved herself wrong after visiting and hosting us so much that she made switch to decaf. She recently said her life was better for it.

And we all know that change is never easy, but it does have positive impacts.

The Brewton Standard announced a change of its own last week in that newspaper delivery will be through the U.S. Postal Service instead of newspaper carriers beginning with the Nov. 1 edition. We know that a lot are disappointed with the announcement.

For some, the idea of newspapers is inextricable from the vision of the youngster on a bicycle, bag slung over the shoulder, tossing newspapers liberally along suburban streets. That vision, however, was outdated even in the ‘80s, and the logistics of coordinating dozens of paper routes while trying to maintain a high level of customer service is a battle whose energy could be much more effectively utilized in other aspects of the operation. In other words, the switch to mail will allow the staff at The Brewton Standard to concentrate more on the newspaper’s core mission of bringing the greater Brewton area the best local news coverage possible.

Though some may lament the end of an era, the many positives the change will bring — no more missed papers or soggy papers on rainy mornings, to name just a couple — far outweigh the negatives. And in time, receiving the paper with the rest of your regular mail will seem like a no-brainer, a change born of necessity but rooted in concern for our thousands of readers.

And like my mother, who once scoffed at the idea of decaf coffee, I hope my readers will soon realize the positive impacts change can have.

Stephanie Snodgrass is publisher and managing editor of The Brewton Standard. She can be reached at stephanie.snodgrass@brewtonstandard.com.