My Hug Bug

That's my youngest daughter.  When she was about 4, she LOVED to hug people.  Loved it.  Sadly, I had to sit her down and somehow explain to her that she couldn't just hug everybody she met.  Just people she already knew, and to check with me, her Mummy, if it was okay.  I'll never forget running into my hairdresser in the grocery store a short time after this talk, and chatting.  Suddenly I felt a tug at my clothing, "Mummy?  Is it okay if I give her a hug?"  She'd judged that this was a friend, and she wanted to hug her, but knew that she should double-check, as this was someone she didn't know.  Aww.  So I said okay, and she hugged, and there were smiles all around.  Wouldn't it be incredible if the world could be more like that?  She was a cuddler, a snuggler, a round little warm pudgy adorable body of a 4-year-old.  She still melts my heart every day.  (And no, she's no longer pudgy, or round, but beautiful, willowy, and perfectly proportioned.)  Her hugs are not as frequent, partly because we live 30 miles apart, but also because she has changed.  Mostly, it's becoming an adult (she's now 25, egad, my baby is 25) and it's also because of society's norms, but it's also due to some not-so-hug-buggish life experiences.

She connects with me on so many levels.  She loves my quilts.  Always has done.  I'd go away to a quilt retreat, and every single quilt in our house that she could get her hands on (and there were many) would be on her bed.  And she would have slept under them the two nights I'd been gone.  She once came with me to a charity quilt bee and made a quilt top; she made me a cover of fabric for my favourite quilting book to keep it nice.  She'd leave me notes:  I found one just last week, inside a book, telling me she thought the pattern on that page would be good for my 9-patch exchange blocks - it was from 13 years ago!  She always asks if any given quilt I'm working on is for her, (she's always hoping) and when she moved to Windsor in 2010 to go back to school, she had but one request, that I make her a new quilt for her new city.  And I did.  She even helped pick out the colour scheme.  She still commandeers several of my quilts, that 9-patch being just one.  I've sneaked a couple back, because I'd like to use them a little....  But she says, and rightly so, that since I'm in Florida for the winter, SOMEONE should be using them so they will most likely find their way back once again to her house!  She respects and supports my passion for yoga; she has even begun her own practice, following YouTube videos, and sending me the links.  We share a love of Pitbulls, well, all large dogs, as well as cats, a love of music, and of fitness.  She listens to me, offers me sound advice, as I try to for her when she comes to me with problems.

And today, the hugs she does give me still take me back to those days, when she was just 4, and she is back in my mama-bear heart, safe and loved beyond measure.  To the moon.  No, to Pluto and back.  No, to the next universe.

Her Windsor Quilt - Summer 2010.  From the book Stack A New Deck by Karla Alexander