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Hug your loved ones!

I hate to say that I am still working through my grief. I mean, in some ways I can imagine I will always be grieving. But I feel pretty confident it will get easier, and I will cry less and less. But, yeah, I guess I am still working through it.

Yesterday, a thought occurred to me: I had not hugged my dad since the end of February, and that will now be the last time I ever did. I did not see him for almost three months because of COVID, and then at the end of May, he started his series of hospital visits with skilled nursing stints in between. I was always afraid to hug him then. What if I gave him COVID? And yet when my dad had really bad ICU delirium during a few different hospital stays, I fed him. If I could do that, why not hug him?

So I cried a bit last night thinking about that. I am not necessarily a big hugger; I used to hate it, and then probably before Jordan was born, I got back to doing it again. Before COVID, I hugged my friends goodbye (and sometimes hello). I always would hug relatives. Even since COVID, I have hugged some friends; I really feel like our chances of getting it that way are slim. 

During my dad's last few days of life, I held his hand. I rubbed his arm, shoulders, and legs. But I never actually hugged him because when we decided to stop doing anything and let nature take its course, he was not awake and he never woke up again. It is tough to hug a sleeping, lying man. I now wish I had tried to, so I had that. But it just never occurred to me. 

This song from Lost is the soundtrack to my grieving. I played it a lot in the months leading up to my dad's death. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoyNLTHUoJ8

So my plea tonight is this: Hug the people you love if that is your thing. 

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