The Wild Boars

Surely by now you have heard about the Thai soccer team who went spelunking with their coach and got trapped deep inside the cave when monsoon rains filled the chambers with water. It seemed like the world sat on pins and needles while the heroic and brave Thai Navy Seals and cave diving experts extracted the boys one by one. Once free of the cave, each team member was whisked away to the hospital for medical observation. From what I have heard, they have only been able to see their families through glass windows from inside their quarantined room in the hospital. I was talking with a coworker, who happened to celebrate her birthday the same day the last of the group was safely brought out of the cave, and I expressed how hard it must be for the parents to not be able to hug their sons after this ordeal. She reminded me that they were medically fragile and it was for their own good that they were not allowed physical contact, but I envisioned myself sitting outside that cave for over two weeks waiting to see my child again. I said I would have to be physically restrained from not rushing to my child and embracing them, germs be damned. Sure, seeing that they were ok would make me grateful, but not being able to hug them and hold them would be excruciating to me. There is comfort in the human touch and we get physiological responses from hugs and touching. I remember when Primero had surgery not long after moving in with me, and how I stood in the recovery room by his bed, holding his hand, brushing his hair off his face, coaxing the oxygen tube back into his nostrils. What if I had been forced to just stare at him through a glass window, willing him to get better and to feel my love across the sterile room? I was tasked with helping him wake up, with soothing him into consciousness. I could not have done that from afar. I know it’s isn’t the same thing, but I keep following this story because I want to see these boys in their mother’s embrace, feeling that relief at their safety and the comfort of being in familiar arms after a very traumatic ordeal. For me, that is when the story ends.

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