When I think about touch
I think about the ability to feel a connection with another
The ability to connect
The closest thing to being one with the substance or person you have at the other side of your touch
I never really appreciated the ability to touch until I couldn’t touch my grandmother’s hand.
As a child, my grandma and I lost ourselves in the world of books.
We would formulate our own stories with epic tails of dungeons and dragons whose victims are saved by a warrior princess and detectives who suffer from memory loss.
Now, when I think about the person I lost,
I think about the smallest moments
The way her hand felt against my own
The way she would tuck me into bed and kissed my nightmares away
The way she would hold my hand tight as she poked herself with the medication that would allow her to survive another day.
For me, that hand is the single most precious memory I have of hers.
If I just close my eyes long enough, I can see the outline of her hand turn to skeleton, muscle and flesh.
Her well-maintained manicure, her wrinkled hand, but above all else, the softness that came from years of lotion and exfoliating.
Imagine the thing you love most is stripped from you.
My biggest fear is waking up one day and not being able to go to the one place I can revisit my Tita alive and well
The one place I can dissociate from the world, which can be as cruel as it is lovely.
So… when you get the chance, remember to hold onto that precious real-time moment,
Because once it becomes a memory, it is up to you to keep that memory alive