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In need of a hug today, I received none.
Yesterday, however, I delighted in many
hugs and touches, all of them maternal.
My mother—age eighty-five, frail, sightless,
hard of hearing, often quite confused—
spent the day with me from early
morning until past suppertime.
My father had gone away,
on business, for the day.
I hugged Mom each time I got her up from bed or
her easy chair. She holds my forearm when I guide
her anywhere. When she’s on the toilet, dozing,
losing track of time, I rub her back and press my
cheek to hers and ask, “Hey, Ma, almost done?”
“I think I’m still urinating.”
When she washes her hands with liquid soap under
warm running water at my bathroom sink, I steady
her with my right hand, my thumb and fingers splayed
across her lower back. With my left hand I monitor
the water temperature. Mom evidently can’t tell which
hands are hers or mine, but that is fine. For nor can I
unless I look—Mom washes and rinses my
left hand along with the two of hers.
That was yesterday.
In need of hand-holding
or a hug today,
I received
no one.
And
no one
received
a hand from me.
♦
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