Webmaster's Bio
Meet Traute Klein, biogardener.

HealingHug Guestbook
Please Sign
or Read Entries

Related Stories

To Hug or Not to Hug, II
Update to the story and excerpts from the messages posted by readers of the original publication of this story on Dec. 1, 1998 at Suite101.com.

Forgiveness and Judgment
When a woman is falsely accused of child abuse by a minister, she turns to another minister for advise only to be hit over the head with the Bible.

Denial Does Not Mean Denial, I
Denial is a coping mechanism and survival skill which keeps painful facts from reaching our conscious knowledge.

Denial Does Not Mean Denial, II
An example of a quarter century of denial by an abused wife.

Selective Denial
Even though I was aware of the emotional abuse by the accusing minister, I blanked out the memory of the permanent physical damage which he caused me until I read the notes which I had made at the time.

To Hug or Not to Hug, That Is the Question

by Traute Klein, biogardener

Do children need hugging to feel loved? I am told that they should not even be touched. Here is the real-life shocking yet heart-warming story as I first told it while it was unfolding in a Winnipeg church just before Christmas 1998.

To Hug a Stranger

Have you ever hugged a stranger simply because he needed your hug more than anything else in the world? I have.

I met the teenage American soldier in downtown Mannheim, Germany, in 1968. He looked scared and out of place among the busy crowd. He had been sent for a two-week leave from Vietnam to recover from shell shock. We sat quietly in a movie theatre watching Peter Sellers' Pink Panther. On that swelteringly hot day, his hands were cold and clammy. He was trembling and clinging to me as a baby would to his mother. "How is this mere boy going to face the horrors of war again in two weeks?" is all I could think. I felt his pain. As a child, I had lived through World War II, and I had witnessed the savagery of the Russian invasion. I, however, had felt secure with both my parents by my side, holding me in their arms to shield me from the horror all around us.

How could I show this frightened child that I cared? All I could give him was a hug, a long, warm hug. Nothing else could have broken through the barrier of terror.

To Hug a Woman

At a women's retreat, the guest speaker told us that a woman's mental health requires three hugs a day. She then asked for a show of hands of those of us who had received our quota that day. I was the only one who raised her hand. As a matter of fact, I had received more than my daily allowance, because I had just come from visiting in an old folks home. Many of the residents had known me since I was little and they treated me like family.

I need my hugs. Like that US soldier from the Vietnam front, I suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder as a result of an attempt on my life. One of the symptoms of that disorder is an aversion to being touched. Then I discovered a group of loving ladies who reached out to me. I remember nothing from the experience except that I got hugged and that I was able to relax. It wasn't too long before I expected the hugs and started to pass them on to others. Eventually, I found a church in my neighborhood where people hug each other when they wish each other peace. I felt as though I belonged and soon overcame my aversion to being touched.

To Hug a Child

With children and with seniors, hugging comes easily. They are so hungry for love. When my mother suffered from Alzheimer's for 30 years, a hug was the fastest way to avert frustration and even confusion. A hug reaches down into the deepest recesses of the heart and calms the fears which are floating on the surface.

I now teach the youngest children in our Sunday school. When these children arrive in church on Sunday morning, they first come looking for me to get their allotment of loving. Some of the parents come along and they get their share as well. Don't get me wrong - those children are well loved at home, but no child has ever suffered from an overdose of genuine affection. Some of these children have known me all their lives and I am family to them.

We are fast approaching Christmas, the festival of love. The images which I associate with Christmas all involve children. They all involve demonstrations of affection. My favorite picture of Jesus shows him surrounded by children, holding them on his lap and loving them. My friend, Audrey Hanried, has painted this scene of Jesus blessing the children:



To Be Judged by a Clergyman

It is no longer safe to be seen hugging children. I have been informed that I am abusing them by touching them inappropriately.

Who is accusing me? Not the parents. Not the congregation. And certainly not the children. No. It is the shepherd of the congregation who is passing judgment at the urging of two other Sunday school teachers.

Jesus in the Church

I wonder what would happen if Jesus visited our church this Christmas, not in the form of a newborn baby, but as a Sunday school teacher.

The children are huddling around him, as they did almost 2000 years ago. He takes them in his arms and blesses them. A cry arises from a horrified Sunday school teacher.

"Child molester!"

"Call Child and Family Services."

Jesus is investigated. His name is placed on the provincial list of child molesters. Our zero tolerance law assumes that he is guilty until proven innocent!

It is Christmas, the festival of love!

Feedback

This Family Circus cartoon appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press on December 5, 1998. Several of my friends cut it out and brought it to church. What a sad commentary on today's school system!