To Hug, Or Not To Hug
She is young
and proud
and crying with despair.
I want to give her a hug,
to share a mutual communion hug,
opposite of a hostile shrug
instead of caring with each other,
To cooperatively embrace
recommitted to responsible compassionate health care
giving webs
and not receiving walls.
But,
I need to ask her permission first
to cross this physical and spiritual boundary
between older and younger,
male and female,
lighter and browner,
employer and employee,
To ask her if she would feel obligated
to take care of my need to reach out
and reassure her we are in this life together,
Or could she freely say,
Not right now?
Without guilt or concern that taking care of me
could or should be more important
than taking care of herself,
her wounded apartness past,
her coping skills protecting too-thin self-esteem
against sometimes smothering needs of others
wanting to be full-steam fed,
especially authority figures
too often invested in Win/Lose games
rather than Win/Win compassionate therapies.
But,
now is not a proper time to ask,
when she is in emotional distress.
Could she freely receive or deny an invitation
to mutual embrace?
For recommiting to we
will not be broken by this,
and perhaps this is our opportunity to grow together,
mutually healed through solidarity embraced,
co-passionate intent,
reassurance,
mutual access, physical AND spiritual, never either/or,
with cooperative boundaries yet to be co-responsibly explored
through more robust everyday compassion.
Even so,
I wish I could be free to ask her
if we might share a co-redemptive hug
rather than lurking in her wings
of our chronic crisis stage
with only her tears
and my box of tissues
to speak how much we care
for a better tomorrow
together
rather than continuing too defensively apart.
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