kissing pictures

Yesterday night after I came home, I kissed the photographs of both my parents. They were smiling so much at me out of their frames and I missed them and so really, what else could I do?

I remembered the days when they used to live in their flesh and not inside a photo frame.

I remembered those days and how whenever I used to return home from traveling, I used to be greeted by such warm hugs.

I remember hugging my mother, how soft she felt, her smell and how comforting it always was. I loved hugging my mother so much.

I remember hugging my dad; I remember how tight his hugs were and how much he spoke to me with his hugs. I especially remember how tight they had got after my mother died and I remembered how inadequate they made me feel because I simply didn’t think I had it in me to fill the emotional void he so obviously had.

And well now. This whole business of kissing them in photographs, the glass frame a barrier between me and their world.

It’s possibly the closest I can get to a welcome-back-home hug.