hugs

Hugs are important in life. I think they should count for a lot more than money in the bank.

My father was a very private person, especially around our house. I don’t blame him, but I never felt that I knew who he was. He kept himself bottled up inside. I probably do some of that too.

A telling moment came during a “celebration” of my father’s life. My sister Carole orchestrated it a few months after he died. She invited several of his friends, including people who had worked closely with him at Prudential headquarters in Boston.

His friends and coworkers sat around and told the most charming, funny, quite lovely stories about my father, whom they all called Pat.

At one point, Carole and I turned to one another and she whispered, “Jimmy, who are they talking about?” Carole and I had never seen this side of my father, the one they all called Pat. We wondered whether my mother had ever met Pat.

I don’t remember a single time I got a hug from my dad. Not as a little kid, or a teenager, or a grown-up. Not until he was on his deathbed.

My father had been a drinker and a heavy smoker into his sixties. Not surprisingly, he developed heart problems. When Dad was in his late seventies, I got a call from Carole that he had been hospitalized up in Massachusetts.

I jumped on a plane and was in my father’s hospital room that afternoon.

We talked and talked, and we finally hugged.

I never forgot that moment, the feel of holding him in my arms, his diminished shape pressed against my chest. My father even told me that he loved me. That was another first for us. I told Dad that I loved him. Charles and James. After all those years, we finally came together.

Less than a week later, he was gone.

Here’s what I took away from those last few days, the lesson I learned and took to heart.

From the time Jack was a little kid until now, every single night before he goes to bed, I go into his room and give him a big hug.

I tell Jack that I love him, and he tells me that he loves me back.