Why I Love Hugs

I grew up in an environment where many of the families had emigrated from various parts of Europe, Italy, Poland, Germany, etc. When I was older, we began to see families from Mexico and Puerto Rico, but they were also busy blue collar workers.

Their fathers were hard working, blue collar men, not known for their hearts on their sleeves. They were on their way to work, care for their families and putting food on the table. The older generation of men other than their heart on the sleeve. They saw themselves as providers for their families. In their generation, that was not what a man was to be done.

So, that was the parental role model for our fathers, for my father, and that is how many of them interact with us. It is not because they do not love us, but it was how they were raised and what they knew. They wanted the best for their children, but they were comfortable with the emotional distance and the unspoken words between father and child. It was, like their fathers interacting with them and so must it be like a father should behave with his children.

As a small child, I respected and sometimes feared, my father. My father was a severe father and if he has something to say to me is one of repsect and fear. He taught me how to catch and throw a baseball really, since most fathers teach their sons how to choke on the bat to contact with a pitch. He taught me how to bait hooks and cast a rod from a JETE at Point Judith in Rhode Iceland. I will never forget how my mother was angry with him when she learned that he taught me how to make a fist and field, so I could in a fight, if necessary.

My father was a big car buff. My father had the most beautiful car of all my friends fathers, a 1957 red and white Ford Fairlane. I was only five years old when he bought the first car that I remember how sad I was five years later, when he sells. I have always hoped that someday, the car would give me. He was his own mechanic and yes, he has taught me how to fix a flat tire, how to properly wash and wax a car and tune the carburetor on the engine, it would be hum.

He taught me how to get all these things, which I very well and was proud of. But he taught me never to say "I love you." As a child I never thought very much, I mean, I've never heard one of the fathers of my friends say: "I love you" to her two sons, so it was really no big deal. He was on my baseball and football games, if he could, although he is always at a distance, away from the crowds and the Hoopla. Sometimes he would say "good job son or big hit," but I'm not ever remember him saying, "I love you."

If I was in high school, he was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, kidney cancer. In those days, based on the lack of technology and knowledge about cancer, most people only lived a year with such a disease. They would the tumor surgically removed, and hoped for the best. My father was a fighter and he was determined to beat his illness and his life. My Father, what the hell, I have two and if it increases my life, I take the chance. He lived twelve years after the first operation.

As a small boy, I was scared, but I also remember this feeling of pride and admiration. As a result, I sat down and wrote him a letter when he was in the hospital, after the first surgery. When I realized how serious his illness was and that he could die, I was proud of his decision, as I learned from him to not worry if your life challenges. I think it was the first letter I ever wrote my father, and it ended with me and said: "I love you.". "

The following year, I have at home in Boston College. We lived in New York, outside of the city, so it was far enough away, three hours that I only come home to visit on occasion. From the moment I voted for the school and with each visit, my father never said "I love you", but he began to do something that he never before, and he began to hug me. From the day I left for college, with each return visit until the day he died he would always hug me hello and goodbye. That was his way of saying "I love you. "

and you know" why I love hugs! "

 

Larry Agresto is a Life & Success Coach and the founder of Peak Performance Coaching. As a single father of two daughters for 12 years, he has developed powerful insight into the role of being a single parent. He shares his experience and enlightens single fathers and single parents alike in his blog The Power of Magical Thinking. Want to learn more about being a single father/parent? Learn more at => http://tinyurl.com/pzn7u5.

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