A Simple Hug
Over 2,000 years ago, Marcus Tullius Cicero said, “For old age is respected only if it defends itself, maintains its rights, submits to no one, and rules over its domain until its last breath.”
My wife, Janet, took that last breath with the help of meds offered under California’s End-of-Life-Option Act in our home on Dec. 15, at 5:33 p.m. She “defended,” “maintained” and “submitted to no one” to the very end.
Our joint journey of anticipatory grieving is over. My solo journey of active grieving has just begun. And I need to be hugged!
By that I mean I need to be touched, and by being touched I refer to a complicated set of circumstances that in its most satisfying and nourishing form combines gratitude, empathy or love with physical contact.
Being touched can mean being emotionally affected and, of course, there is the important physical gift of touch. For the sake of this discussion, let’s combine the two definitions and talk about a moment of intimacy that combines physical touch with a genuine communication of love, gratitude or, in my case, sympathy or empathy.
It might be as simple as the touch of a hand or a warm, meaningful embrace from a friend or a full-bodied hug filled with compassion and understanding, the physical embrace that suggests it will all be OK. Some three months before Janet died, in the middle of a carepartnering support group at the Humboldt Senior Resource Center, I declared to the others, “I miss getting hugged.” With that one proclamation, I was openly admitting to my loneliness, isolation and emotional needs as the carepartner of my wife, whose body was breaking down day by day. I could tell from the looks on my colleagues’ faces that my spontaneous outburst spoke for many others.
I spoke to our complicit silence. We carepartners are often not able to put words to our shared missings of sex, intimacy and hugs. So we sit in silence.
Carepartners or not, we all naturally need moments of physical and emotional intimacy, and our need does not decrease as we age. Admitting that you miss being touched, that you miss physical intimacy, is extremely difficult.
But, as Cicero maintained so long ago, if we as elders do not advocate for and maintain our right to moments of deep personal physical intimacy, certainly no one else will.
As we age, the loss of physical intimacy can have a profoundly negative effect on our physical and emotional well-being. Sex and physical intimacy are essential aspects of human connectedness. Losing a partner, a spouse, can be debilitating. Being a carepartner for someone whose terminal illness leaves them without the energy to give you the hug you so desperately need is also debilitating.
According to the National Institutes of Health, physical touch with a genuine communication of love, gratitude or sympathy “lowers stress hormone levels and consequently lowers blood pressure, thus maintaining good moods and increasing pain tolerances.”
In Cicero’s words, “old age is respected only if … .” My words: Old age is respected and honored only if we share our stories and advocate for ourselves in as open and vulnerable a manner possible.
Whether we age at home or in an assisted-living facility, alone or in partnership, we need to protect and maintain our rights to have genuine moments of physical and emotional intimacy. That requires a first step — for us to openly discuss what we want and need.
Would it be so horrible if you also stood up within a group of trusted others and announced, “I miss being hugged”? Surprise yourself and find out. Or maybe start with one person, a special person, and ask for a hug.
However we do it, we must advocate for ourselves. For a simple hug.
John Heckel, Ph.D., a retired HSU theatre and film professor with a doctorate in psychology, is a Senior News columnist and member of the Senior News Community Advisory Council.
Contact: jh2@humboldt.edu.
