Okay — first a story that will make sense only in time.

When I was in the fourth grade I read Emily Dickinson for the first time. I thought that I’d discovered my Personal Poet, so obscure that she was mine alone. I was particularly enamoured of (quoting from memory):

Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me.
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.

Lately, I have been acutely feeling my mortality.

And though I’ve long felt ‘hugs’ silly, and refused to dole them out, I’m now wallowing in the Milk of Human Kindness and indiscriminately hugging those that touch any human nerve.

I’ve become a hugging ho. And proud of it.

Certainly my intimacy with mortality has played a part but, honestly, the kindness and support that other (not to be named) members here have demonstrated — as well as a not to be named administrator (sabby) — have fairly overwhelmed me.

I am only now realizing the importance of kindness. And of real-life and digital hugs.