If a loved one dies in our lives we usually think about the last time we saw them. What were we doing with them? What was the last thing we said? Did we hug?
One of my great regrets was not giving my dad (Harold Vernon Marshall) a hug the last time we said goodbye. I remember him standing in my doorway leaving after a great visit. That day it just didn’t happen. I thought about it but waved it off thinking, as usual, I’ll do it next time. There was no next time. The next week he died in a car crash in the early 1980’s. I always think about that day with regret.
“If I can say one thing to all our friends and neighbours –hug your children. Tell them you love them as often as you can,” NDP MLA Harry Bains wrote in his statement about the shooting of his nephew in Surrey BC. This got me into thinking about how many loved ones suddenly and without warning never come home ever again for so many reasons.
It seems normal to pay more attention to goodbyes when people go away for a long time or live in another city or country that you won’t see them for a long time.
What about when loved ones leave for brief periods of time on a regular daily basis? They might go to school, the mall, visit a friend, go to a movie, pick up the mail, and so many other regular activities that we don’t think about it when they leave. What should we do then? Are we a nag if we want hugs all the time?
At times we are too busy to even acknowledge when someone is leaving the house on a regular basis. What if you never see them again after one of those times? Let’s be nags and bother our kids with an over abundance of hugs.
I’m still working on my hugs after 50 plus years. Let’s hug more often.
