Poet and essayist Robin Beth Schaer writes of death and the necessity of touch in “Holdfast.” She starts by recognizing that we tend to leave the dead alone, they “are for morticians & butchers / to touch. Only a gloved hand. Even my son / will leave a grounded wren or bat alone…”
What is too fragile to hold on to? Schaer contends butterflies are “too fragile to hold / alive, just the brush of skin could rip / a wing.” She shares about a beloved friend who she never touched. They didn’t speak of her terminal illness or of “the days pierced by radiation.” There is a shrouding of her friend’s illness, a compartmentalization in an effort to protect and respect her wishes, but the result was an absence of physical connection.
Shaer concludes that “We should hold each other more / while we are still alive, even if it hurts.” She notes that baby monkeys prefer touch over a more caloric type of nourishment. I remember this study from my college psychology days. It speaks to that which we seem to know as young children, forget, and relearn over time: holding fast to each other is what may matter most in this world. Shaer, like many of us, finds herself agreeing with the baby monkeys: “I would choose to starve & hold the soft body.”
Writing Prompt: Have you had a friend or patient or loved one who was too ill or seemed to fragile to touch? Do you think touch can have a healing effect or that lack of touch can be detrimental? How have you seen this manifested in your life or a patient’s life? What are the different ways we hold on to each other, both literally and figuratively? Write for 10 minutes.