Touch

When you get to be a certain age, and your spouse has passed on, and your kids live far away, you sometimes go weeks, even months without a human touch.  Sometimes I would find myself brushing up against people in the supermarket, or pressing my credit card into the hand of the server at the diner, or hugging a casual friend hello or good-bye unnecessarily.  Anything just to feel the warm life of another living being.  At night my bed seemed to grow bigger.  Even though I’d replaced the large king-sized bed I’d shared with Tom for 30 years, the mattress always felt overly ample when I lay awake at dawn, unable to fall back to sleep.

Most of the time I didn’t notice I missed the touch of other people.  I went about my days, opening the shop at 9, fielding questions from the myriad people who came through the doors to buy locally-made soaps and lotions.  I went to dinner with friends, occasionally to the movies by myself, and every day at 7:30 and 5 I walked with Brandy through the wooded trails across the street from my small clapboard house. 

Maybe it was sharing my life with my loyal mutt that fulfilled my need for other contact.  I don’t know. 

But when I hurt my back and Jan sent me to her brother the chiropractor, I discovered a truth I hadn’t known.  The feel of his hands on me left a great longing and a deep ache for the comfort of another body.  The naked touch of a human lying next to me at night.  The reassuring hug good-morning that I hadn’t felt in 10 years.

Sadly, when you’re a 67 year old woman and you live in a small town in coastal Maine, and everyone knows your phone number and where you pump your gas, your options are limited and your hope is fleeting…