A Touch Protective

                                    

 

If worrying were a sport I’d be an Olympic contender.  Not to brag, but I’m really good at it, particularly when it comes to my kids.  I worry about them all the time, so much so I’d bubble wrap them if it wouldn’t make getting in and out of the car such a nightmare.  The problem is that while the world is a lovely place, it has its share of disease-spreading mosquitoes, rusty nails, trampolines, teachers who save their indoor voices (screaming) for when parents aren’t around, not to mention people whose big idea for the day is to try and swipe a kid.  

My first impulse is to protect my children, to guard them from this fallen world by bolting the door, shuttering the windows, and hunkering down in the front room with popcorn and sleeping bags to watch The Sound of Music until the second coming rolls around. Of course, Sam wouldn’t make it past the nuns troubleshooting in song about Maria.  He’d roll his eyes, shake his head slightly, and say with a hand on my shoulder, Lisa, we can’t stay cooped up here because you’re afraid something bad will happen to us.  It’s not healthy, and besides, I want to pick up Chipotle.

Though I want to shelter them, I know I must send them forth, and I do, but not like Richard Branson’s [Virgin Airlines] parents who when he was a young boy dropped him off far from home and told him to find his way back.  A few days later, exhausted, he stumbled through the kitchen door.  Personally I couldn’t do that, even if it guaranteed my children would grow up to be billionaires.  I’m too dedicated a worrier.  Still, I send them forth, trying--especially with the ones who at the moment are testy teenagers--to make sure I touch them before they go.

 

 

 

 

                                                     

 

 

At the start touching them is effortless.  When they’re babes in arms their fuzzy heads are at an easy distance for kissing, and once they begin toddling we hold their hands to keep them upright and safe.  But as the years progress (along with their acuity to sass us) our touches can grow sparse. Yes, they’re around us less, but it doesn’t help that sometimes talking to a teenager is like tap dancing for the lions at the zoo—no matter how hard you try, they yawn, look away disinterestedly, and gnaw on whoever is next to them.  But sassy or not, they need their mothers to reach out in love and touch them.

I don’t wait for the mood to strike me, a wave of love catapulting me, arms open, toward them.  My approach is far more deliberate, and if it doesn’t happen any other time, it happens during family prayer.  While we stand or kneel in a circle, while their eyes are closed, I reach for them.  It’s a simple thing, and I can’t vouch for what it means to them, but it means something to me.  My hand on their arm as we pray is my way of saying, You are mine, and I love you.  Well, either that or One false move and I’ll dig my nails into your skin.  Depends on the day.  But then I hug them, tell them I love them and send them off into a world that bumps, pushes, and provides plenty of hard knocks, with the faith that often what makes the most impact is a mother’s touch.