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. We are the tender version of mankind.  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 tender 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, “In answer to your  feelings  about  your role as a mother 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 18^th 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 a 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 “mother” touch can extend beyond our children to people outside our homes that need our touch, a touch that costs us nothing but a little effort.  There are people in our world that need an encouraging word, a smile, a pat on the back.  Our touch is as unique as each individual. No one person can be what every person needs.   But we can be who we were created to be to the fullest degree.   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.  There are individuals around us that need a tender touch of compassion and love.

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 Man under The Sanctuary.

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