Emotional Hugs

Someone gave me such a hard hug last year and I checked it out with my doctor and he said it was a tightness pulled and mild bruising to the facial muscles and a bit of strain. It will heal completely. Take some Tylenol and Aleve and no concussion. Headaches from the muscle and the muscles braced themselves when she hugged me.

Have you ever heard such a silly type hit before? Now, if I should meet George Clooney and he wanted to hug me, I would have to say no. I told an acquaintance of mine this story as she got ready to hug me on Wednesday and she said “OK, I will give you an emotional hug.”

What a nice line. An emotional hug. I like that and we can all give to others through the internet, via email or on the phone, now and then an emotional hug. I always said to Mom on the phone on the three times a day I called her daily, was I love you. Such a simple group of three words and they can move mountains, move doubts, move sadness and most of all move the person who is the recipient of hearing them.

I use to say to my two children “I love you up to the sky.” Now I say it to my grandchildren. Think about it, the sky is so high and especially in a child’s mind, it is even higher. I had a friend whose son-in law died suddenly when his son was about eight years old. One day, as his widowed mom and grandparents were on their way to the ocean, he looked up and said “dad is with me, I think he can see I am going to have fun in the water.” That made him feel secure as he was going on his vacation trip. It was a tender, yet, sad thought from an eight year old boy who had recently lost his dad.

Once when we took our older grandchildren to a restaurant, they gave the youngsters a balloon. My second grandson let it go up to the sky when we departed the place. He said it was for his great grandmother, my mom, who he never knew. He said she can hold on to it while up in heaven. Children speak what they feel and most of the time; it is quite suggestive of their loving feelings. They say it with innocence and love.

I always say in these stories, that we ballroom dancers should embolden new people in their dancing with inspiring and complimentary encouragement. I could also add for us dancers to give them my new special words, an emotional hug. An emotional hug can be imagined by someone on the receiving end of a phone call (do people still call on the phone who have computers). It can be texted (though I do not text), it can be written in a short note send via the post office and it surely can be given by a loving look.

So in person, on the email, on the phone, on a text or a handwritten note, give somebody each day an emotional hug. You will be acknowledged, approved and admired for what you have done. It costs no money, no shopping via the stores or online and most of all, you will feel that hug you gave as much as the recipient. Pat Boone (singer from the eighties and nineties) had a daughter who made her first singing appearance with a song called You Light Up My Life. She and the song became a sensation. The words were so meaningful and beautiful; it almost became a phrase in life in those days.

So light up someone’s life and give them and yourself an emotional hug.