A Hug Saved My Life

I have been around people who did not touch or hug and yet they cared and loved deeply. I have been around people who hugged, kissed and professed their love to everyone and everything. They were shallow and did not care for longer than an hour.

Three years ago I was in the second year of an agonizing time of my life. My husband of almost twenty years had been badly injured and brain damaged. He was safe at home with me. His smiles, giggles and hugs kept me going day after day. My normal reclusive nature became extremely reclusive. Except for the telephone we seldom had any contact with people.

My husband became frustrated, his miraculous improvements had stopped. He got mad and stopped smiling, stopped communicating and stopped hugging me.

One day we had a blizzard and a new business acquaintance drove up through the blinding snow. I had never met him before, but my family had known him for over 30 years.

We quickly conducted our business and as I turned back to the house he reached over and hugged me. Just a hug, but a few people can really hug.

It startled me but instantly I felt warm and alive.

In a few days my husband regained his normal optimism and life dramatically improved. I saw the man 3 or 4 times that year, I always got a hug. The next year I saw him 5 times, the hugs were a little longer and I got a quick kiss on my forehead or cheek.

Each time he arrived I was at a bad point and his hugs and then little kisses instantly warmed me and made me feel alive.

The last time that year I saw him it occurred to me to think of him as man, not just a business acquaintance, friend and family friend.

I was horrified, suddenly his innocent hugs and little kisses, that meant life to me, seemed wrong. I felt like I was having an affair or cheating or some thing terrible. It took me a few hours to calm down. I realized I needed his contact and that I was using him, taking the warmth and life he was giving me.

This was not a matter of right or wrong, this was a matter of survival.

The next few months my husband made excellent progress. He was happy and full of mischief. And then one night as I helped him to bed he sighed and touched my cheek.

“No more. Soon I will move on.”

He looked so tired. The next morning he asked for the wheelchair. As I watched him sleeping I finally accepted that he was dying.

I knew I had to make some decisions about the direction of my life after his death. I had broken us financially, to pay off the medical bills, almost three years before. I was able to keep my husband fed and warm and our bills paid with his income and mine but with his death I would be left with only a few hundred dollars a month income.

I slipped out of the house, ran a ¼ of a mile and collapsed into hysterical sobs and screams. I knew it was dangerous to leave him alone but my collapse would have frightened him.

In over two years I had not cried or called out my frustration and anger. Everything came out at once. My dogs crowded against me, whining and shivering. They were terrified. Their eyes were rolling and little Cameron kept puddling. Their fear brought me to my senses. My strong brave dogs were reduced to cowering lumps of idiocy by my screams and crying.

I forced everything down inside of me and watched my dogs calm down.

I slipped back into the house and removed my jacket in the kitchen. I took time to warm up, I did not want the coolness of my clothes to wake my husband when I checked on him.

He began to sleep a lot and had to begin to use diapers again but he did not seem to notice. Weight seemed to melt off of him.

I made lists of everything I had done, could do and what I had wanted to do with my life. What I had wanted to do, as an adult when I was a child, I had done. Strangely what I had wanted to do I still wanted to do.

Those last two weeks while my husband slept I made and discarded plans for my future. Finally my first plan was the only one that would make me happy. It would be tight and a long haul. This time I would not go into a familiar business.

It would take a normal person 10 years or more to learn and do this. I gave myself 5 years on the outside of time, and 6 months to make my first significant breakthrough.

That last week it was as though my husband himself was gone. His body still breathed but he was unresponsive, until the day before he died. He woke up and hugged me. He was smiling, giggling and kept chirping the name of our youngest son. An hour later our son drove up to the house.

My husband did not speak while our son was here. He patted him, smiled at him and kept pulling our sons' wedding ring off and throwing it. My husband never liked that wife of our son. For a whole hour they were together and then my husband slipped into a deep sleep. The next day his body went into the death rattles and then quit, but I think my husband left when he said goodbye to our son.

While his body was transported away I threw myself into my studies and my work. Using the Internet I enrolled in classes, took courses and learned. I arraigned 4 work desks and geared my whole life to learning and my work. I worked until I dropped, woke up and began again.

About a month after my husbands' passing I took some time to review my progress and my options. I wrote options on pieces of paper and spread them around. For some reason I had written suicide on one piece of paper. I studied each option carefully making lists and reviewing them.

I picked up the piece of paper with suicide written on it. ‘That is silly I have too much to do!’ I wadded it up and threw it away. To think of and consider suicide can be healthy, it should scare you silly but all I felt was impatience.

I picked up the piece of paper and smoothed it. I made lists and seriously contemplated suicide and the ramifications of the act. I began to put my affairs in order. ‘A person needs to do this every once in a while’, I told myself. In a few hours I was done with the paperwork.

I do not know when I decided to walk out into the desert and shoot myself. It made perfect sense not to kill myself on or near my property. It would mean bad memories for our children.

I was going to die, going home, reorganize and start over again. I called a neighbor and asked him to check on my animals. It could be awhile before my body was found. I was calm, warm inside and my skin was kind of numb and yet tingling.

The man drove up. It had been almost 6 months since I had last seen him.

‘Perfect, one last hug.’ I thought.

I got my hug and a little kiss. We conducted our business. He asked me how my husband was doing. When I told him my husband had died April 17th, he froze and looked at me.

Suddenly he hugged me again. I heard ‘you are alive’ I do not know if he said it or I thought it. He held me for a minute or two and then left.

That night as I lay down I realized I was not going to kill myself. I had too much to live for. Once the foundations of my Empire were laid I would find my perfect mate. A new prerequisite would be life-giving hugs. I was giggling as I covered up. Imagining arms wrapped around me, a warm belly next to my back and hugs anytime I needed or just wanted one. I wondered what would happen if I hugged the man back.

For the first time in almost 4 years I slept safe and warm. For a while I would go to bed every night to sleep like a regular person. Sometimes I would feel arms around me, hugging me, I slept great on those nights.

A few weeks later my first love called me. For almost ten years we had gotten together for a few hours or so here and there, in between husbands, wives and significant others. It had been twenty-five years since I had seen him. He had never wanted me permanently but he was in trouble and needed me.

1. No matter what he was my first love.
2. He was my friend and a family friend.
3. He needed my style of help on a lot of things.
4. I had been sleeping alone for four years, and given my God given appetites, that is not healthy.

For a year I spent every other week with him and then every other week on my work and studies. Stop and Start. You know how frustrating stopping and starting projects are? Try it for a whole year!

And something was missing, I was not satisfied and he resented my studies and work.

One day at home as I was hurrying to catch up on my projects the man drove up. I got my hug and little kiss and I hugged him back and got a real kiss! Wow, Yikes, that was cheating!

Suddenly I knew what was missing, first class hugs and great kisses. I realized that my first love hugged and kissed every one but me. He did not respect my time with him and would often delay our projects to solve his problems and out and out waste my time.

And he was getting more and more jealous of my work and studies, demanding more of my time when I was not with him in 3 and 4-hour phone calls. I had to find a way out. He was beginning to withhold sex, using sex to bribe me.

I would miss the sex. That was great but then if a woman complains about lousy sex from her man after the 10th or so time they have been together she has no one to blame but herself. After the 10th or 11th nights together she should have him properly trained.

I worked harder, taking 10 or 11 days for my work and then giving him only 4 or 5 days of my time. I would not answer the phone unless I was ready to take a break. Finally he threw a fit. Because he knew my appetites, he decided that I must have been sleeping around on him. Hanging up the phone that last time was a relief. Sure I got physically lonesome, but I just used that energy to do more work.

My production soared. I was figuring things out and becoming confident about my plans. But there was a wall solidifying around me. I knew I was cutting off a physical human contact. I was not giving serious consideration to the relationship offers I was receiving. I was nice and said ‘Thank you but no’ to every offer.

Once I decided to deliberately break down that wall, I dressed and went to town. No. I could not even force myself to even consider the offers. I was slightly surprised by the huge numbers of offers I received. Wow, there are a lot of single men here. I decided I needed more time alone and I went back to my work.

In a year and a half from the passing of my husband the foundations of my Empire were laid and I began to focus on streamlining and on increasing my income.

It would have been great to have someone special, with an interest in my work to talk to, to discus various options, avenues and to be with.

On my first truly major success, with every thing beginning to fall into place the man drove up. It had been almost a year since I had seen him. I was ecstatic. A hug and a kiss! This would be the first time I had earned them! He was here for my happiest day in four and a half years!

I ran outside laughing and talking a mile a minute. I got my hug and kiss. We finished our business with me jabbering and him laughing, I reached for him. I wanted just one more hug and one more kiss before he left.

Yikes! O to mach 10 in 4 minutes! Every thing but the final act, I mean every thing!

Suddenly we did not know what to do! We had no time!

I am convinced ‘blue balls’ hurt a woman far more than they hurt men. I was seized by an instant tummy ache. You cannot wind up a woman like that and then stop.

He had the strangest expression on his face shock, pain and maybe confusion. Yes, a man can be raped and maybe that is what almost happened. That wall I thought was 10-foot thick solid granite was only a single layer of dust.

Will I see him again? Of course business is business. It may be a little awkward but we will work through it and back off to being friends.

I have a sneaky suspicion he is married. Relax, women I do not want your husbands. But if your man is on the road you need to give him some extra attention.

This man is not an experienced tomcat, at least in my opinion. At a certain point he did not know what to do anymore than I did. An experienced tomcat would have figured out all of the options long before that day.

On top of my other prerequisites is:

1. Life giving hugs.
2. Perfect all over kissing.
3. Well-trained hands.

And a whole lot more time, at least 4 or 5 hours, 2 or 3 times a week.

In a couple of months I will sit down and give serious concentrated consideration to this relationship thing.

I can remember, think about and love my late husband again. Perhaps I was in a state of shock and hurt from his injuries and then the disappointment of the reunion with my first love.

Thank you for being there in the bad times. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for freeing me from a bad relationship. Thank you for being with me on my first truly happy day in four and a half years. Thank you for knocking down that wall and thank you for making that day so memorable.

(I just used that energy for more work.)
(Damn, that hurt for days.)
(You know this working all of the time without special pleasures is for the birds.)

Thank You.




Jesus: The Man And His Work