Healing Hugs

CW: Contains themes of loss and grief

Her hug was warm, gentle yet with a strength that made Jenny feel as if everything that was broken had been squeezed back into place. This was one of the reasons that Jenny had come to Sarah to talk everything out. Sarah always gave the best hugs.

Sarah stepped back and locked Jenny in a direct eye-to-eye contact. “Jenny, I am so sorry for your loss. We only get one mom, and things are never the same after she’s gone. Please know that any time you need to talk, or vent, or not talk, or scream, or whatever, you are welcome to come here. Just give me a quick call or text to make sure I’m not out somewhere, and then come on. I will be here.” She smiled, then reached for another quick hug. “Sarah, thank you so much. I feel better already.” Jenny turned and opened the door. She shivered as the cold air slapped her face, the tiny pellets of sleet hiding behind the snowflakes stinging like fire. Sarah looked worried. “Please be careful driving home, now. Let me know when you get there, okay?” Jenny nodded, then turned toward her car. She climbed in, started the engine, buckled in, and waved a thumbs-up to Sarah as she shifted the car into gear. Fortunately, the sleet and snow mix had not been flying for too long, and the roads were not super slick yet, though they were well on their way. Jenny drove the long, curvy route carefully. She pulled into her garage and closed it, then hurriedly slipped into the door to her warm kitchen. Warm in temperature, but otherwise so very cold and empty. 

She quickly sent a text to Sarah, telling her she was home safe, and got the immediate response of a heart emoji, and the words “Love you.” She tossed her coat, gloves and purse on the sofa, and plopped into the old armchair in exhaustion. She sat for quite a while, listening to the quiet. She barely noticed when the tears started. The last two weeks, there had been so many tears. So many tears. Exhaustion tears. Grief tears. Love tears. Relief tears. Regret tears. Her emotions had been all over the scale. This was so much harder than she’d thought it would be. She hadn’t expected to be riding this emotional roller-coaster, not with this many highs and lows, anyway. Her poor mother, how she’d suffered. How she had made Jenny suffer. Her nagging voice, constantly stabbing Jenny with sharp criticisms, put-downs, nothing was ever good enough, food never tasty enough, house never clean enough, nothing ever meeting up to the impossible standards she expected. The constant negativity had taken such a toll. Jenny had loved her mom so much. They had been so close at one time. So close. 

The familiar chiming of her mom’s old grandfather clock interrupted her thoughts. She had heard those chimes ring out the hour since she was a baby. It had been her mother’s most cherished possession, passed down to her from her grandfather, Jenny’s great-grandfather. Jenny had reached her first birthday shortly before the old man had passed, so she had no conscious memory of him, but her mother had kept a photo she had taken of her grandfather, Sirus, holding baby Jenny on that special day. She had talked about her grandfather often, recounting his wisdom and joyful spirit. He had practically raised Jenny’s mom, Miriam, from her infancy, because Miriam’s mother, Annabelle, had suffered from early onset dementia, and she became almost impossible to live with toward the end of her short life. Sirus had been the one stable force for Miriam in the midst of the chaos of mental deterioration. So that old clock, in its faithful chiming out the hours of each day, represented the stability and faithfulness of old man Sirus. Jenny looked up as the chimes rang out their familiar tones, counting the hour…8…9…10…11. Eleven o’clock. “I probably should go to bed,” Jenny muttered to herself. But her mind was still whirling with emotion. Escaping from that turmoil, even if only in a few hours of sleep, seemed impossible. Her conscience didn’t seem to even want to cooperate. But she knew she couldn’t just sit in the chair all night, either. 

She stood up slowly, turned out the lights in the living room, and made her way to her bedroom. She went through her usual nightly routine, brushing her teeth, washing her face, getting into her pajamas…all the usual ritualistic things. She ended with taking her prescriptions, including her Valium. She’d become pretty dependent on that one, due to continued muscle spasms and back pain after a car accident some 20 years earlier. She stared at the bottle of little blue pills for an extra moment before putting it away.       

Sleep came quickly, mercifully. No dreaming, at least for the first several hours. Until 3:00 a.m. Even though it was two weeks since her mother was gone, she still snapped awake at 3:00 a.m. Just before waking, she could hear her mother’s voice calling to her, but the second she woke up, it was gone. The echoes rang in her ears, but they were only echoes. She sat up for a moment, trying to shake off the disruption. She got up and went to the bathroom, then splashed water on her face, trying to clear her mind. Lying back down, she stared at the ceiling, watching the fan blades spinning. Sleep eventually returned, but not as peaceful as before. Dreams came and went, dreams of her mother before the dementia began. Dreams of the laughing, loving, sweet, upbeat, always encouraging mom, the mom who was supportive and fun-loving and strong and noncritical, the mom Jenny loved to be with. The mom she loved. The mom she lost a long time ago. 

Jenny woke up again about 6:30, unable to even pretend to sleep anymore. She got up, went through her morning routine of shower, bathrobe and well-worn fuzzy slippers, bought for her birthday by her mom back in the good days. She walked into the kitchen and put on the teapot to heat. She pulled out a doughnut, her mom’s favorite chocolate frosted, and when the teapot whistled its morning song, poured the water into the cup with the waiting tea to brew.

As she sipped her tea and ate her doughnut, she thought back to her mom’s words, back when all was good and peaceful. They had been sitting at this same table that morning, sipping tea and munching on sweets, and Jenny remembered being surprised by the intensity in her mom’s voice as she recounted Annabelle’s critical, mean-spirited attitude in her final months. Then her mom had grabbed Jenny’s hands in hers. “Jenny, look at me, and make me this promise. If I ever go down the same path as my mom and turn into the same kind of monster that she did, please, please, find some way to end that. I don’t want to treat you like that. Whatever you must do, please do it. Promise me.” Jenny was so startled she could only nod. “Say it, Jenny. Say that you promise. Please.” “I promise, Mama,” Jenny had finally choked out. Her mother smiled and gave her one of her strong yet gentle hugs, those hugs that always put everything back in place. “Thank you, Jenny. I love you.”

The sunrise began brightening the room, shining through the window as that memory flooded her mind. Jenny swirled the last of the tea in the cup she was using, her mom’s cup. The little white teacup that had been her mom’s favorite, now apparently had a permanent blue stain in the bottom of its’ once pearly whiteness. “Mama, I miss you, so much. But I kept my promise,” Jenny whispered. And then she smiled, as brightly as the sun, as she realized her heart was finally at peace.