The Weight of Unheld Arms

There are people

who measure love

by birthdays remembered,

by photographs framed,

by laughter around crowded tables.

I measure mine

by the spaces

where a hug should have been.

Not once,

from the hands that brought me into this world.

Not from siblings

who shared my childhood roof.

Not from the man

who promised forever.

Not from the children

I carried in my heart.

Not from the tiny grandchildren

whose arms never found their way around my neck.

I have lived

through decades

without knowing

what it feels like

to be someone’s safe place,

or to rest

inside the quiet certainty

of another’s embrace.

People say,

“It’s only a hug.”

They do not know

that a hug says,

“You belong.”

“You matter.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

What is a heart

supposed to believe

when it has never heard

those words

without a single sentence spoken?

Some days,

I wonder

if I was born

missing something invisible—

some secret worth

everyone else received

without asking.

I smile.

I speak gently.

I help.

I give.

I endure.

Yet somewhere inside,

a small child

still stands at the doorway,

arms half-raised,

waiting for someone

to choose her.

Years have passed.

The child has silver hair now.

She still waits.

The emptiness

doesn’t shout anymore.

It has learned

to whisper.

It sits beside me

at family gatherings.

It follows me

into quiet evenings.

It lies beside me

when sleep refuses to come.

It asks,

again and again,

“If no one has ever held me…

was I ever worth holding?”

I have no easy answer.

Only this:

My life became a garden

where everyone else found shade,

while the gardener

stood alone in the sun.

Perhaps my greatest sorrow

is not that I was unloved,

but that I spent a lifetime

loving others

with arms

that were never held.

And if heaven

keeps count of silent griefs,

may it remember this one:

There lived a woman

whose heart never stopped giving,

even though

it never truly knew

what it felt like

to be gathered close,

to be cherished,

to be home

in another person’s arms.