When's The Last Time You Hugged Your Children?
Every parent knows the day will come when they'll pick up their child for the last time, but it doesn't have to be that way with hugs
Have you hugged you kids today? I don’t mean hugged them, I mean really hugged them.
It doesn’t matter the relation. Biological, adopted, foster, or guardianship, the question remains the same: have you hugged your kids today?
Not like it’s an obligation and they’re an inconvenience, but like it’s an honor and they’re a blessing. And I’m not talking about the usual fleeting hugs you give them as you rush off to work, I’m talking about the hugs that remain with them long after you’ve left.
Do you hug them with such singularly focused determination that they feel completely safe, loved beyond measure, and blissfully unaware of their own mortality? Hugs that help them rise above all the fears and insecurities that their little hearts secretly harbor?
Do you grip them so deeply that they feel nothing bad could befall them as long as they remain in your embrace? That they are sheltered from the chaos of a wicked world that’s gone mad around them?
Do you hug them so passionately that in your arms is the only place they want to be? That when they grow older they’ll look back on those hugs and long to be in that moment with you again?
Do you hug them with such an abiding love that they will yearn to return to that place — and that very moment in time — where mommy and daddy loved them like crazy and made them feel like nothing else in the world was more important, more precious, or more sought after?
Do they know how deeply — how fathomless — your love is for them? And are they secure in that love? Will they carry that assurance with them for the rest of their lives?
Hugging your children is so simple and it leaves such a lasting effect on them, yet so few kids ever truly experience this simple gesture. Instead, so many of them are all too familiar with stern scowls, pain, anger, and the constant reminder that they’re a burden to their parents.
Don’t waste another minute. Hug your kids.
Hug them in a way that they’ll never doubt the depths of your unconditional love, even if you lost the ability to speak.
Hug them when they’re happy to let them know how happy you are to have them in your life, and hug them when they’re sad to let them know everything’s going to be all right.
Hug them when they’ve been good, hug them when they’ve been bad. Hug them when you feel like it, hug them when you don’t.
Hug them as if they were dying . . . because they are, and so are you.
And if you’re fortunate enough to live a long life — when you get too old to take them into your arms like you once did — they’ll embrace you with a tenderness that you’ll immediately recognize, and they’ll reassure you that everything’s going to be okay, just like you did for them so many years earlier.
So, I ask again, have you hugged your kids today?
If you haven’t, then when you’re done reading this, take five minute to embrace them as if these were the last moments you were going to have with them.
The world you grew up in is not the same world your kids are growing up in (and it’s not for the better). So put down that phone and go hug your kids. No more excuses. Just hug them. Because hugs last a lifetime . . . but so do regrets.
J.L. Pattison is the author of three contemporary speculative fiction books, earning him two awards (and garnering him favorable comparisons to Rod Serling, M. Night Shyamalan, and Ray Bradbury) with a fourth book coming late summer of 2023. He writes for such publications as Liberation Day, Predict, Koinonia, The Startup, The Writer’s Sanctuary, and The Writing Cooperative. His articles have also been featured at Mere Liberty and on Todd Friel’s Wretched TV. But most importantly, J.L. Pattison is a daddy and a prolific hugger of six little ones—who are not so little anymore. To find out more, visit his website at JLPattison.com.
Beautiful as usual. Thank you!
Marian