Not All Embraces Are Romantic

Lin Ross
Lin Ross
Nov 6 · 3 min read

Today, at dusk, from my window overlooking a dimly-lit courtyard, I saw a young couple embracing tightly.

I looked, casually, then looked away.

But something told me to look again because there was a particular kind of clutch, a sense of desperation within the way they held each other, and it lingered inside their embrace. It seemed to last for a very, very long time.

Upon that second look, it struck me. I deciphered this was not your typical type of PDA, nor was it a romantic gesture.

This was deeper, and it felt sadder. If people have vibrations, then the energy between the two of them contained a definite ping of melancholy.

I could physically FEEL it.

It was grief.

This was a raw show of fresh, soul-aching grief being mutually consoled.

I could tell, because, while it initially compelled my eye; upon that second glance, it made some thing inside my spirit feel immediately uncomfortable.

I looked away again.

The sight of them triggered something in me; call it an emotional muscle memory:

I vividly recalled the evening of my mother’s death.

In rapid succession, one sharpened memory after the next, so many things came flooding back: The medical jargon… the antiseptic smells, the off-white walls, the strong scent of rubbing alcohol and the thick energy of exhaustion were alive inside that hospital room.

The doctors had done their best. The nurses had tried like hell to save her.

Adding to this came the sympathetic way they all turned and gazed at me. They knew. They knew that

thing…

I had not yet known.

My mother was gone.

Then, moments later, my brother and sister-in-law came dashing into the room.

There was nothing left to say. We spoke in a silent language of defeated gazes, barely nodding heads, and then, slow downward looks.

He knew. I had not yet told him, but he knew.

And suddenly I was swept into my brother’s own desperate embrace. It was as if we’d reverted back to being children again, trying, in vain, to comfort one another. One of us was crying. I couldn’t tell who. Perhaps both of us were. But the embrace seemed to last forever.

We were both adults, both men, but in the moment, we were orphans, and there were twists and turns and decades of emotions inside that embrace.

There was sadness and humor and memories and anger and pettiness and silence… and love.

There were kidhood fights and family vacations and boisterous breakfasts on Sunday mornings — all crammed into that one embrace.

There were seasons of faith and religion, Bible studies and rebellion, unspoken failures, resentments, unsung accomplishments, and there was love.

​When someone you have known and loved for all your life, transitions, it takes a very long time to set things right again or to find that proper place to put them inside the past-tense.

Sometimes, it begins with a long embrace.

The kind of embrace that holds a lifetime of stories, of laughter and tears. ​The kind that slowly succeeds in breaking your face. The kind that plays its own pensive melody: an achingly slow-paced dance; a tender waltz of memories. The kind, that, in a moment’s blink, can draw a stream of crippled water down one’s cheek.

The kind​ of embrace that doesn’t give a good damn who sees it or even what they may think.

The kind that writes its own sad English; much like the one I’d just now witnessed.

That kind of solemn embrace I’d revisited today, from my window, at dusk overlooking a dimly-lit courtyard, where I saw a young couple embracing.

My God! That hug they shared, it seemed to last and last… and last.

But sometimes grief can be just that intense.

​I wish I possessed the knowledge, the wisdom or the voice to tell them:

“In time… you will get through this;

but you’ll never get

past it.”

​C​opyright © 2019 by L.M. Ross

Written by

Lin Ross

Oft-published poet, novelist, freelance writer, longtime New Yorker, currently based in SC, proudly penning poetry & polishing prose with a profound purpose.

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