Touch

There are many so many different kinds of touches:

·        A common high five between sports fans after a successful play.

·        A gentle pat on the back of a beloved dog as she sits next to you while typing at the computer.

·        The familiarity of shoulders up against shoulders as a family watches a movie on the couch.

·        The closeness between a husband and a wife literally unparalleled to anything else.

·        The unexplainable stirring in our souls from God exchanging fear for peace during prayer.

They are all the gentle, sweet touches that add delight and joy to our days. But what about the tenderness between a mother and her child? Did I miss that? Forget that one? Skip it somehow? No. A mother never forgets her child. But in living with a daughter with an attachment disorder, touch is not wanted, not invited, even rejected. Her heart was broken so many times before she ever came in to our lives that “touch” no longer holds the same meaning for her. No matter the intention behind it, my touch to her as her “new” mother makes her uncomfortable, ashamed. It is unwarranted.

But…

Today, I heard a whisper of a request spoken ever so faintly from her room. If I wasn’t so near to her room in the hallway I may have missed it. Was it a test to see if I too would abandon her need as she was so used to with her previous family? If I really loved her, I would be able to hear her quiet request, “Mom, can you put lotion on my back?” No, I would not neglect her. No, I would not leave her to fend for herself as she so often had to do in Ethiopia. I knelt down beside her and honored her plea. I gently rubbed in some lotion on her back. Her head was down but her lips curved upward. A hidden smile.

As the children rode away on their bikes in the driveway racing off to school, I hollered to them as I do every day as they leave, “Have a good day. I love you!”

She shouts back with an unexpected and almost unimaginable response, “I love you too, Mom.”

She has touched my heart.