The recent COVID lockdown announcements mean that I will be able to HUG my daughters again soon! HOORAY!
All along I have felt that what I missed most the whole pandemic lockdown were HUGS.
As a former shopkeeper, I do feel for those who put their livelihoods to the test, but, at my stage in life, amid the weariness of lockdowns and the dreariness of stay-at-home rules, the thing that hurts me most is the lack of hugs.
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Maybe you are the same.
A Hug is love made tangible. Somehow, perhaps by osmosis, you can feel the love transferred between you both.
But not all families are hugging people, and times do change. I never saw my parents hug, nor my parents-in-law. Maybe, in those days, it was not done in the sight of children. On the other hand, my mother and her sisters were enthusiastic huggers. Maybe that is where we get it from. It has always been hugs all round in our family.
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I think that the need to hug is innate in human beings. This is seen in the pictures of people from everywhere arriving at airports giving very enthusiastic hugs to their waiting loved ones.
And who doesn’t want to hold (not hug in this case) a new baby! When you hold a baby, the love flowing is indeed tangible.
Stephen Fry once said that a hug should not last longer than three seconds. (What?) He said that any longer and something more was implied (or perhaps inferred). I think it depends whether you are hugging your daughter or your neighbour.
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Meantime, I do get to separately hug two of my daughters, who live in the same LGA, and visit on the pretext of helping their frail 83-year-old father. (LGA – that’s a new word. I thought it referred to something lightly grilled.)
The other two are 35 kilometres away in a different LGA, so out of bounds. Them’s the rules!
But they are about to change. Roll on 11 October!
What the world needs now are hugs, sweet hugs!
What are you looking forward to as Australia starts to reach its vaccination targets? Why not share your thoughts in the comments section below?
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