Today, This morning I have had a revelation – if you know God, believe you can have a full out conversation with God, then I’ve just explained what my morning ws like. I did a little work, read a few chapters in a book, Spend a little time soul searching and prayed and waited for God to talk back. Ironically he did not answer the questions I asked. Did not say what I wanted him to hear. Didn’t have some long deep conversation full of revelations. He simply said
“Touch the people you love.”
I thought God meant in some poetic deep meaningful way, then God said
“Just put your hand on them.”
And I understood.
Nothing conveys love like touch. That I need to have my flesh touch your flesh. Know you are real – Feel your spirit in your skin. Touch leads to all your other senses. If I touch you I’m close enough to smell your scent, through colognes and soap. See you and just you. Hear you breathing, taste your mood, (Sorry it’s the poet in me) and touch you accordingly. Is it any wonder that a hug releases so many emotions in people? Or simply a hand on a shoulder to assure people in their souls that they are not alone. And I say this to you all so I can tell you to touch your family. Hug them because they are there. Put your hands on your friends. You touch will tell them you are there for them and they are not alone. Your child who you are having difficulty with, mate you feel slipping away, friend you haven’t talked to in weeks, sibling you just don’t hug often enough, the person you can’t get them to understand you and you don’t understand them – put your hand you their cheek. Muss their hair, playful head lock, hug from behind, TOUCH them. They need it and so do you.
My aunt can make me tell her the whole absolute truth we one hug. She can pull tears from me I didn’t know I needed to shed by putting both of her hands on my face and looking at me. She gives the biggest full body – you better now she loves you hugs I ever got, one other person comes close, a friend – we’ll call Clark. He is always going though something. Life is not nice to Clark – he has the worst luck –if you want to call it that- of anyone I know. But he always hugs you – sometimes I think its because he needs it, sometimes I know its because I needed it but I always know its coming. I see Clark I get hug. Big ole rounded back his arms reach all the way around me and stop at my arms on the opposite side- none of that middle back pat for Clark –NOOOO! You see Clark you get THAT hug. That simple. And I know Clark loves me, we are good friends. He is arguably my best friend, and we got there one hug at a time. I like to lean on him, and when he leans on me I know its because he feels welcome in my home and in my space. And I wonder if the other people I love know what their touch means to me, I know what my touch means to Jerry and as much as I gripe about all the backrubs he asks for and how every time I touch him he tells me that he likes it- as if I didn’t know that and it had nothing to do with why I chose to touch him, or give him a hand rub- Even though these things drive me crazy I’m glad I know that my touch tells him I love him, as it is supposed to. And maybe I’ll get around to loving him and the rest of my people a little bit more.
