Julie Jay: I was never much of a hugger, but now hugs are a big thing in our house
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This week with my students, I revisited the poem ‘A Call’ by Séamus Heaney, who like leather jackets never goes out of fashion.
The poem recalls a telephone call to Heaney’s father’s house, with the wait that follows leading to a rumination on the passage of time and the inevitability of death.
As is often the case with Heaney, the last line — which sees his elderly father eventually come to the phone after he is fetched from the garden — packs such an emotional punch it almost takes your breath away: ‘Next thing he spoke and I nearly said I loved him.’
Even the most cynical teachers and teenagers cannot help but be moved by the purity of such a declaration and overwhelming gratitude for a loved one.
It is a testament to how much parenting has toughened me up that this poem did not push me over the edge completely of a Monday morning.
Yet, returning to this poem after all these years, it is hard not to read that line and want to text every aunt and uncle in your family contacts list, telling them how much you love them.
Such texts would probably be read as scams nowadays, especially if you end the message with a request for bank details.
But the subject of ‘I love you’ declarations had already been swirling around in my frontal lobe because this was the same week that an Instagram reel caught my attention.
In this video, a woman posted a ‘get ready with me’ tutorial and spoke of a recent interaction with her nephew while applying her makeup, disproving the urban myth that women can’t multitask.
He had recently asked her not to say ‘I love you’ as much as she had been.
She thanked him for telling her and asked him how often he felt OK — twice, as it turned out. As she expertly applied individual false lashes to her left eye, she spoke of how listening to children and taking our cues from them is essential.
While most comments about the post were positive, a couple of followers asked for false eyelash recommendations, because as much as communicating with the children in our lives matters, eyelashes are important, too.
It got me thinking about how often I tell my kids I love them, which, by all accounts, is a lot.
Like anything, love has a time and a place, and too much of anything is never a good thing. Even by my gushy standards, it feels a little excessive to tell my four-year-old I love him as he leaves my side to brush his teeth and expect him to reply in kind.
Much like an ‘I love you,’ on a first Tinder date is a bit of a red flag situation, having to tell your mother you love her every time you momentarily leave the room is clearly paving the way for Norman Bates 2.0.
I try to take the lead from him, and while I occasionally reign in the number of times I declare my undying grá for the small people in my life, I know the important thing is not that they hear the words regularly but rather that they feel loved, and seen, and heard.
Love is best shown, not spoken. Feigning interest in Hot Wheels, giving fist pumps, and delighting in them every time they enter the room are all things parents do without even thinking about it, and are all ways kids are made to feel safe and secure.
Hugs are a big thing in our house, and I am as surprised as anyone, given that I was never much of a hugger.
Having grown up in a quintessential Irish family household in the ’90s, the closest any of us got to a hug was somebody performing the Heimlich manoeuvre when we started choking on our deep-pan Goodfellas pizza.
Nowadays, embraces come thick and fast in our chaotic abode. The hugs happen with such regularity that they make Sky News headlines on the hour look positively sporadic.
‘Hug attacks,’ as we call them, basically consist of my little fella hugging me so tightly that I eventually have to beg for mercy and plead for release — essentially like a WWE headlock, only in our house, nobody is a paid actor.
“You’re ridiculous, the two of ye,” my husband will laugh. But when the baby also piles on, his laugh turns to a sigh of resignation as he realises he has no choice but to get on board with this family huddle until somebody (usually me) breaks.
When discussing Heaney’s poem this week, I asked the same group of students: “If the poet could go back to that moment, do you think he would say ‘I love you’?”
Every student responded that yes, he would.
“Cos it’s kinda like you don’t know when you’re talking to somebody whether it’s going to be the last time,” one particular student said. Heaney couldn’t have it better himself.
It’s never too late to tell somebody you love them, and today is as good a day as any to do it.
Unless you are on a first Tinder date, in which case, at least wait until dessert, because even if the person doesn’t love you, they might at least have the decency to go splits on a tiramisu.