When I was a girl, when life seemed too tough, I would climb on my father’s lap and he would listen to my concerns and hug me. The love that he showed me was carried down from his mother whose hugs made everything ok. She smelled of talcum and Skin-So-Soft. Her arms felt semi-solid like pillows made of bologna. Her bosom yielded to my head like parting a folded blanket providing warmth against a chilly summer breeze. It was that love that permeated my father’s hug. I told him my troubles and he listened.
Just saying some things out loud made me feel better. It, whatever it was, could be faced, could be named, could be spoken of and manipulated. it was no longer wedged in me. It was out there where I could touch it and move it. That hug was the first step toward stripping it of its mystique and limiting its overshadowing power. I cannot recreate my father or my grandmother’s hugs, but I can and do create an envelope of acceptance and love when I listen as coach. It is that generations-old love and power that I offer.