To hug or not to hug...

Hugs, believe it or not, are pretty powerful things. They can bring comfort when you least expect it, they can push your emotions over the edge after working hard to keep control and they are amazingly different from one person to the next. Some people are ‘polite’ huggers – gently laying their hands on the other person’s shoulders, getting the hug over quickly with as little touching as possible. There are the ‘patters’ where patting on the back lasts the duration of the hug. Can’t forget the ‘boob’ huggers that squeeze you as tight as they can right around…well…let’s just say the ‘girls’ get squished. Shockingly, these huggers are usually men. There are awkward hugs that are really uncomfortable and last longer than they should and then there are the serious hugs. These hugs are reserved only for those you really care about, you get as close as possible and just hang on for dear life.

Now, I normally love a good hug – the kind where you just settle in and enjoy. But, there have been moments in my life where a good hug was my emotional un-doing and there is nothing I try to avoid more than crying in public. I’m a crier in general – I cry with every emotion. I’m a big old mushbucket but I only show this side of myself to people I’m really close to. So, I have become really good at putting up hug barriers – I paste a smile on my face, allow myself to be hugged and feel nothing. This was particularly handy after my mom died. Everyone wanted to hug me so the barriers went up with full force almost immediately. There are obviously downsides to guarding your emotions so carefully. The biggest one was that I didn’t make any decisions between the time my mom died and her funeral with my heart – they were all done with my head. Given the circumstances, my head wasn’t thinking all that clearly and my youngest daughter suffered the most as a result.

Bella was 3 yrs old at the time and I made the decision to keep her from the funeral. I had it set in my mind that it wasn’t the place for a child so young. Watching Sarah (7 at the time) crawl onto my fathers lap in the middle of the service so that they could hug each other and cry together while a church full of people watched and cried right along with them only strengthened my decision. I told myself Bella was too young – she wouldn’t understand anyway.

I was so stupid!

It was Bella that cried herself to sleep for months afterwards. It was Bella that needed to talk about her all the time when all I wanted to do was pretend it never happened. It was Bella that needed to hold on to every single memory fearing they would disappear too and it was Bella, the only one of us that didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to the Gram she adored. Cue the hugs and lots of them – the magically healing ones that only a mother can give her child, the ones that make the hurt better, that make you stop crying and that eventually, give you back your smile!