The Hands That Heal

I once wrote a post on the internet about the reassurance that can come from touching. I was surprised to get two responses that said touching is important. I had heard about babies needing to be touched, but it never occured to me that a 23 year old might still need to be touched. I am talking here about physical touching although I know you can be touched in other ways than physically.

I do know quite a lot about touching in a romantic way, probably way way too much. But here I am writing about what I call the 'reassurance' touch. By that I mean a person touching you in a way that makes you feel that they understand and want to help you.

I'm sure when I was very little my mother touched me in a reassuring way. But as you get older and think you 'know it all' touching begins to look like baby stuff. Yes I was that way. Because of my own mistakes, touching was almost lost to me. Three years ago I found I needed reassurance. I've told the story, but a priest made the sign of the cross on my forehead when I was in great pain, and then held my head up as he gave me medicine. The pills and the touching, I swear, worked together. And then the woman who took care of me as I recovered touched me as she washed my injured feet and removed my sweaty T-shirt and my pajamas to change them to make me more comfortable. I was not embarassed to be unclothed for a few minutes because I knew I was being helped.

At church when the priest puts his hand on my head and says "Frank, God loves you," I almost feel like a child again. At school when I did something good and some other students patted me on the head I knew what they meant; and when my girlfriend pats my head and says "Sandy I really like you," I know she means as a friend not just a boyfriend.

In reading some of my experiences, you might think I'm a "Jesus freak." Well maybe I am, if you are talking about the Man who healed the lepers by touching them. I heard a sermon at church last month that lepers were thought in old times to have gotten the disease becaused they had sinned. We know that is not true. The disease did not come from sinning. But maybe a "moral leper" like I had to be called was started on the road to healing by touches. I kind of believe this.

In a few weeks when I am confirmed, I hope a hand touches my head and "says" "Frank, you are healed," and I hear a voice say "Jesus loves you." I want the person who said those words that touched my ears or heart to be a member of my family.