Touchy Feely

It is odd to me that some people are not "touchy." Give them a hug, and they give you a weak grasp much in the same way they might poke a dead animal with a stick. Unfortunately, if this is your initial response to my human contact, it will not deter me, the next time I see you, from squeezing you again like a roll of Charmin. It's just how I am. And I will never understand otherwise, even if I can't convert you. I haven't been able to convert the missus after nine years, but her constitution is particularly strong.

That said, I was particularly pleased to spend Saturday at a Labor Day party with my relatives at their cushy trailer site at the Buttonwood resort outside near Elkton. Parties with my family are like manhandling conventions. My aunt also cooks enough food to send to a squadron in Iraq. So, inbetween grabbing, there's eating and drinking and smoking. And then there's more. And then when you're tired, you get a goodnight squeeze to send you on your way. And in the morning you look like an pummeled roll of toilet paper.

We found out that a neighbhor of ours has breast cancer. She's a young, vibrant woman in her fifites who is like a first cup of morning coffee. She knows everyone within a five-mile radius of her house, it seems, and she always asks you how you're doing, even while she's sitting on her couch because she's too sick to get up from the chemo. Although her prognosis is good, I don't understand why something so slippery and deadly had to happen to Nancy, someone who, from all appearances, seemed to be such a beacon of light for the rest of us who sometimes dwell on the little things to the point of anger, depression, surliness.

And she reminds me again of my mortality, of the little deposits I make to the bank of death. While I run for an extra minute or do ten extra sit-ups or eat more carrots to insulate myself from the genetic inevitability of my death, whatever it may be, I also think about the cigarettes I slip at my family's cookout, the drunks we go on at the bar, the self-defeating thoughts that knock from time to time. Then I think about Nancy's full life thus far and its inability to shield her from her family history of breast cancer. I guess it's all a wash.

I hugged Nancy on Sunday, when I found out, and again yesterday, when K and I went visiting with her. I'm happy to report she's a hugger as well.