Do you know how many blogs and essays and opinions are out there for us to soak up? I’ve never googled it. But, I know it’s a lot. There are so many, that there are no words or ideas or phrases that I will pen here today that will be necessarily new. So, why do those of us who like to throw our ideas onto paper keep doing it, if it’s not really laying down anything that hasn’t already been said before? Because in the same way that many give big, giant hugs as a means of support, I give words. I do like hugs. Human touch (especially now) is golden. But, for as long as I can remember, I’ve always recorded my deepest emotions in words. And then I give them to other people. Like a hug.

I’m sitting here on a Sunday afternoon and the window is open because it’s 62 degrees with a barely noticeable breeze. I hear a bird. I hear a dog. I hear the bouncing basketball and the dad and the son shooting it around on the driveway. I hear the unattended tv in our family room – also hoops. I hear an airplane. And because we had an unbelievable tragedy in our state last Monday, as I pause and listen to my surroundings, my mind takes me back 7 days to last Sunday. The day before that tragedy. Did any of those 10 souls, whose lives on Earth were cut short without their permission, hear any of these same things last Sunday? It was cooler that day, maybe the windows weren’t open. Dogs surely barked and birds sang, though. Families played ball. People flew in airplanes. Same as today. Just seven days ago.

My mind wonders what sounds each of them noticed last Sunday. Of all the sounds that competed for brain space, which ones sped VIP to the frontal lobe, beating out all of the other riff-raff sounds that didn’t matter? There are a lot of sounds that come into our ears every minute. We don’t pay attention to them all. We can’t. Filtering is vital to our survival. The world would be a cacophony from birth to death without it. The possibilities of what each of those 10 heard and noticed on that Sunday before that tragedy is endless. As I listen to the dad, the son, the basketball, the dog, the bird, the airplane, I find myself hoping that whatever it was they each heard and processed, noticed, and felt on that day was full of meaning, emotion, reverence, and love. That they heard the most important things for him or her on that day, at that moment.

How do we move forward in light of a horrible tragedy? How do we fix what’s broken? How do we heal people who hurt? And how do we heal people who might hurt other people? How do we heal them before they hurt people? Fractured families, workplaces, schools, nations? How do we help people to visit stores, attend movies, drive down the highway, get on airplanes, and go to school without a fear that tomorrow might not look like today?

The truth is, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. But, you know how a loved one will jump in to hug you as tight as a vise when the sadness in your heart threatens to overtake you? I know you know what I’m talking about. There are people we encounter in our lives that can literally hug the hurt out of us – if only just for a few seconds. But, there is power in that few seconds. Those seconds allow you time to catch a needed breath and get some clarity. Clarity not to forget what brought you the hurt in the first place, but to know how to move forward when the hug is over and in a way that doesn’t destroy you in the process.

In that same vein, I offer my words. They are my hug to you. And in the same way that a hug can’t directly make you feel at ease getting on the airplane or walking through the shopping mall or ducking in to buy those eggs, that hug gives you so much power. You have power. We have power. We have a beautiful world full of birds and basketballs and people who hug us so tight we see stars. Is it fragile? Of course, it is. Why do you think we see stars and only stars for a quick second when somebody hugs us that tightly?!? Because life is fragile. Fragility is okay. The world doesn’t require us to be tough and unbreakable. It only requires that we care more than we fear. That is how we help each other. Give and get all the hugs this week. They don’t always come physically, especially in Covid.

XOXO