Every time I visited my grandparents, my Nan would be waiting at the front door and I would be greeted by the BIGGEST hug.
Nan just knew how to apply the right amount of time and squeeze to maximize the love. I’m literally grinning as I type these words!
Sadly, she’s no longer with us. In fact, our last hug was about 20 years ago, and yet Nan’s hugs remain etched in my mind as treasured memories.
Once I was released from the Nan hug, we would sit and chat. I would enjoy watching the snooker with Nan (in black and white, but nobody cared) and help Gramps in the kitchen. Nan would teach me to knit (her speciality was over-sized mohair jumpers) and the oldies would chatter and hook me in with their stories.
When I think back, it isn’t the big things, it’s the little things that I remember about them. It’s the steady presence of Gramps in his chair, remembering that he used to take off the skins of the tomatoes for me because I once said I didn’t like the outside of a tomato. It is the small Yorkie bar in the cabinet as you walked into the living room (excited that you would get to share it after dinner!) and the fact that Nan would check what time I would wake up the next day so she could go into the bathroom 30 minutes before and put the heater on for me.
I’m going back 20 years, to a time when there were no smartphones, and just a handful of TV channels. We brought our own entertainment. The hugs, knitting, cooking and chatter – that was it! My daughters are growing up fast and it’s got me wondering what kind of Nan I’ll be? I love the modern world, and I adore wi-fi and connectivity, but I really want to be like my own Nan. She excelled in old-school, high-quality, face-to-face connectivity.
And hugging is central to my best ‘future Nan’ strategy. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, I think my Nan secretly knew about 7-second hugs. You see, they are AMAZING. At Art of Brill, we often give 7-second hugs as homework. It’s a lingering ‘I love you’ hug that releases oxytocin, a hormone that is associated with increased levels of trust, calmness and creativity. So right from the moment I was greeted by my Nan, we had this amazing connection, this trust and calm.
Those 7 seconds that Nan and I shared are some of the most important seconds of my life. When the time comes (if the time comes?), I want to be THAT Nan. The mohair jumper-wearing, knitting, snooker-watching, 7-second hugging SUPER NAN!
Oh, one last thing, don’t count out loud when you are hugging for 7 seconds! It spoils the effect!