Touched

Surgery went well. Pretty much textbook all the way.

Much of last Monday morning’s experience is blurry around the edges, but I remember the anesthesiologist telling me from far away to “take five deep breaths”, and someone slowly stroking the back of my right hand and wrist in the most soothing way (almost like they knew I was a bit anxious). I woke up in a small recovery bay, curtain drawn, throat scratchy from the intubation tube, my inhales shallow and ragged, and my sister, Jane, holding my hand through the bars on the bed’s safety rail.

I felt reassured, safe, precious, loved.

On the way home from the hospital, she stopped at a small market and bought me chicken and wild rice soup, dill pickle potato chips and nitrite-free turkey. I was looking forward to a light lunch and a heavy nap when we got home. I don’t remember getting out of her car, walking up the porch steps, or changing my clothes. But when I woke up from that heavy nap, she was still there, sitting in our great-aunt Louise’s platform rocking chair just outside the doorway to the kitchen. Her gentle presence touched my soul. Indelibly.

That was one experience of thousands in my short lifetime of being touched, at all levels, from all dimensions, and the key moments that stood out. I accept that the rest will be blurry around the edges, retrievable at some later and final hour, perhaps. The significance of touch is well-researched, and the findings consistently reaffirm this primal need of ours, to be in contact with each other, closely and regularly, to the benefit of our health at all levels, from all dimensions. Social convention still silently requires us to offer apologies for accidental contact—bumping into someone in the frozen food aisle at the grocery store, or at the concessions stand at a concert venue, but hopefully, we wrap our “sorry” in smiles of reassurance that we meant no harm. For that infinitesimally tiny connection, we are given the chance to remind each other that proximity matters and can see those brief encounters as a portal to the simple understanding that we’re one family and, for the most part, are good and decent members of the same tribe. We lean more toward kindness than violence, no matter what the headlines say (for evidence, please see the footage from the rescue efforts in Venezuela, or go to any local farmers’ market).

Blessedly, this power of touch and connection spirals out to include all living things. Several times each day, I register the comfort and softness of my cats’ fur and can tell, just by touch, who is who, based on their fur’s texture and length, the shape of their spine, size of their paws, and how Bumper has a notch in his right ear. On my morning walks, I reach up to feel the velvet-like side of a new sycamore leaf (more established leaves are smooth) and on my fingertip, I catch a single drop of dew hanging securely from a slender branch. It feels cool as I rub it into my cheek. Baptisms come in all forms.

The grass beneath our bare feet, the solid wood of the family dining room table, the reliable arms of a parent holding their sleeping child, a firm and friendly handshake from our new supervisor, an unbreakable embrace with our one true love… We need this stuff on a daily basis, no holding back. In those reels of the survivors being pulled from between the cracked concrete walls of collapsed buildings in La Guaira, Venezuela, I watch all the hands that pass a dusty litter along a human tunnel of support, carrying someone’s 12-year-old son and placing him carefully, joyously, into the back of a waiting ambulance. I think, “this is what community looks like”, while a packed crowd, standing shoulder to shoulder, no space between them at all, claps and cheers. It’s who we are at a cellular level—caring, eager to help, hungry for the kind of celebration that only true human connection can offer. Disasters bring that out in us, of course, but it isn’t necessary to wait for tragedy in order to feel the urgency of our need to touch and be touched. We were made to fasten ourselves to each other’s benefit, well-being, and deeper purpose. We need only pay attention for the opportunity to do so and accept—or extend—the invitation.

I know it’s hot this week, and the idea of being in someone else’s personal space might seem pretty low on the list of desirables. But the heat dome ain’t gonna last forever, and maybe in a few days, you’ll find yourself standing next to that living invitation to connect, if only for a small moment of your life. I know you’ll be kind, and reassuring, and sincere.

And better for saying “yes” to the opportunity.