I love delicate things. I love perfume and daisies, picnics and soft music. I enjoy knowing I have the power to change another’s life for the better. I love being a woman. I love being the softer, gentler, species of mankind.
Amy Nappa has written a wonderful book titled, “A Woman’s Touch”. In it she speaks of the impact women have on the lives of all we touch. Our fingerprints are all over the people we come in contact with every day. This can be a positive or a negative thing. Those fingerprints tell who we are, where we’ve been and what we’re doing.
Amy speaks of fingerprints that have changed the course of humanity. Have you ever considered Eve? She and Adam were the first to leave footprints in the sand, to see a sunset, to smell a rose, the first to laugh and the first to cry. We tend to forget about all the “firsts” because of Eve’s infamous fatal touch. She changed life forever for Adam, for her children and for us. That particular touch reached through time and even today gives us a sobering look at the impact of a woman’s touch. Physical prints are easily removed, but the prints we leave on people’s lives are permanent.
Women have an extra special way of touching people. It’s in our nature to want to soothe away hurt, to bandage skinned knees, to hug someone who’s crying. We give touches that are not only needed, but, in fact, people enjoy our touch. As Ms. Nappa says in her book, “We’re not trying to get people to eat okra or wear itchy wool undergarments.” We have that special something that makes others feel good. Somehow we make everything seem all better.
Touching our children’s lives is a special calling within itself. Through the years I’ve regretted my lack of knowledge in my younger years of “growing” our sons. I have shared thoughts with them on things I know now that I didn’t know then, things I would do different if given that chance to go back.
*My oldest son is an attorney living in Seattle now. A while back, I received an email from him that will always be among my most cherished possessions. He started, “I've been thinkng about your 'mother' feelings and our limited resources, I’ve listed a few things I remember about growing up.” There was his list of 48 touching memories he had taken time to write down. Among them:
1.Sitting with you on the front row in church while you played the piano.
2.Going on family bicycle rides
3.Going with you to the park and smelling the honeysuckle
4.Talking to me about what happens to little boys when they die (His friend had died in a plane crash.)
5.My first day at school, when you bought me that silly book sack.
6.Having two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches ready for me everyday when I came home from school.
7.Sitting with you in the swing on summer days.
8.Organizing a surprise party for my 18th birthday
9.All the books you have sent me and the emails
10. All your prayers over the years.
My regrets for things I may have left undone, and the money we didn’t have, vanished with my son’s memory of all the simple, little things that took time, not money. To think I was given a place in time to touch the heart of this young man, my son, is awesome to me. Twice more I was challenged to give that special touch as we were blessed with two more sons.
Our touch can extend beyond our children to those who need desparately to know someone cares. The only cost to this kindness is a little effort given as an encouraging word, a smile or a pat on the back. It starts in our home. From there the sky is the limit. Life can be an intoxicating joy when we realize the power we have to put a smile on the face of discouraged people.
My husband introduced me to one of his favorite poems a while back. It has become a favorite of mine as it speaks of what we all need. Strickland Gillian says in the last stanza of “Need of Loving”:
Folk want a lot of loving every minute
The sympathy of others and their smile.
Till life’s end, from the moment they begin it,
Folk need a lot of loving all the while.
*For more on my son that sent this email, see My Little Boy, The Manunder The Sanctuary.
