My granny Yvette Nahmia, or “mamie” as we called her had a funny way of saying she needed a hug. She would sign to her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to come sit on her lap, and as she would put her hand on your leg or shoulder she would utter the famous two words. “To Touch.”
My granny’s “To Touch” was a code for the immense value she attributed to the sense of touch. “To Touch” meant, “live your life with plenty of touch,” and pointed to the joy that comes with physical proximity with a loved one. “To Τouch” further meant, “I love you hence I want to be close to you. Not just through words, but by you sitting on my lap, or by holding your hand when you sit next to me.” “To Touch” as pronounced by “mamie” stressing the “ch” sound also meant: “take this gift from me now, and pass it on to your children.”
We all love remembering our matriarch, and retelling stories filled with jems of hers transmitting the family’s values. Mamie had a talent for communicating through code words like “alegria,” “kefiziko,” and “To Touch” or code sentences like “make it liviano (easygoing)” and “it is time for a beeritsa (beer).”
Greek granny’s “To Touch” concept came to my mind today as I was reading Maham Hasan’s article, “What the loss of hugs is doing to us” in the International Edition of the New York Times on the importance of the sense of touch and its current shortage due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Thank Goodness Greek granny is not living through this coronavirus pandemic, I thaught as I was reading the article; this lack of touch would have devastated her.
I find it hard to have to refrain from hugging close friends in Jerusalem these days. Instead of hugging I have adopted the Mayan greeting gesture, the two palms meeting before the heart, that traditionally goes with the saying of “In Lakesh ala Kin” that means “I am another You.” I put my two hands, palms meeting before my heart and simply say “Shalom” the classic greeting word in Israel meaning peace.
I find this gesturing to be reassuring; It helps me convey my feelings towards them in a new fashion.
The coronavirus is forcing us to reinvent how to communicate with others at this time of social distancing. Although challenging and at times frustrating, I have come to realize there exist ways to curcimvent the distance and communicate one’s feelings and care.
It has been a process, but I have now come to grasp that when one has the intention to reach someone, s/he will find the way reaching her somehow, in some perhaps new, unknown, unheard of way till recently.
A friend in Greece was in hopital, in need of healing touch. It took a phone call and a facebook post to get organized and arrange for healer friends from Greece and Israel, to send our friend distant healing. We all acted in accordance with the coronavirus restrictions; None of us appeared physically at the hospital, however the energy sent to her from miles and miles away did get to reach her.
I have a sense that beyond the new zoom meetings, distant schooling, and home working skills we have acquired during this pandemic, the time is ripe for us to open up to our sixth sense of intuition. Our sixth sense, our intuition, will enable us to grasp ways and intuit solutions that were unheard of when Greek granny was still around, but I sense she would have loved, being the forward looking, pioneering woman that she was.
From Jerusalem with love,