Dear Reader:

Yesterday I caught only a small portion of one of my favorite shows during the week, CBS Sunday Morning, and later I felt like I was supposed to see this special segment. The power of one hug.

If Steve Hartman, CBS News reporter, is doing a human interest story…I can almost count on having to jump up and find the tissue box before the story is over. This played out exactly the same way yesterday morning. The segment was simply called “The Hug” and it could not have been more appropriately labeled.

Human contact. Until we go a long time without any…we forget how fundamentally basic the need of a physical embrace is to our human nature. We are social creatures and as such need human contact on a regular basis. Absence brings depression.

In other words…we need each other! A hug can not be received without giving one back in return. It is the perfect physical contact between humans. It is what defines us as human.

Enter Dan Peterson into our story….he is an 82 year-old widower from Augusta, Georgia (having recently lost his beloved wife, Mary, of many years) who experiences a chance meeting with a four year-old little girl name Norah Wood. This encounter, in the vegetable aisle in a Publix grocery store, will change both their lives…

Steve Hartman Interview with Dan Peterson/CBS Morning Show

Not long ago, in a cemetery outside Augusta, Georgia, a loving couple was buried – the wife, buried below a white bouquet and the husband, buried above in a mound of grief.

“Took me totally by surprise,” Dan Peterson said. 

The 82-year-old said after Mary died, he fell into a deep depression, and he spent days just staring out at the squirrels.

“What were you living for?” Hartman asked.

“I was trying to figure that out, frankly,” Peterson said.

“You had no purpose?” Hartman asked.

“No,” Dan replied.

 “Were you just waiting to die?” Hartman asked.

“Yeah,” Dan said.

For six months, it was just that bad.

Then it all changed after a visit to a Publix grocery store. Dan was nearing the end of the canned vegetable aisle. He hates grocery shopping and, by all accounts, the expression on his face confirmed his aggravation. 

But that’s when this unapproachable man was approached by a four-year-old girl named Norah Wood. 

In the security footage you can see Norah randomly reaching out to him waving her arms. Her mom, Tara, said it was quite embarrassing.

“She stood up and said, ‘Hi Old Person, it’s my birthday today,’” Tara said.

“Old person?” Hartman asked.

“Old person,” Tara said.

“Hi Old Person,” Dan recalled.

“She says this to this cranky old man…you?” Hartman asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” Dan said.

The girl then had the audacity to demand a hug.

“I said, ‘A hug?’ I said, ‘Absolutely!’” Dan said. 

Norah got her hug and then asked her mom to take a picture of her with her new friend. 

“She zeroed in on him like a missile. And she didn’t want anything from him,” Tara recalled. “She just wanted to make him feel loved and give him a hug. And his lip quivered, he  teared up and it was just sweet.”

“And I said, ‘You don’t know. This is the first time, for quite a while, that I’ve been this happy,’” Dan said.

That all happened a couple months ago, and his grin has only gotten wider since.  

Today Norah visits at least once a week. And every time, it’s the grocery store scene all over again. *

*She even brought him  balloons and a cake to help him celebrate his 82nd birthday. 

“Totally unbelievable,” Dan said.

Dan does have grandkids of his own, but they’re grown and gone. And Norah does have grandparents, but her mom said this is a completely different kind of bond that almost defies explanation. 

“She falls asleep holding a picture of them. And I’m like, what!” Tara said, laughing.

To Dan, it’s equally miraculous but far less mysterious. He believes Norah is, quite literally, an angel. “My special angel!”

“She opened me to a love that I didn’t know existed,” Dan said.

“Dan, let me ask you – When your wife died, you felt like you didn’t have any purpose anymore. Do you feel like you have a purpose now?” Hartman asked.

“Of course – Norah… watching her grow up,” Dan said. “I know I made room in my heart for a lot more.”

It never ceases to astound me how people can say that they have never heard or witnessed a daily miracle…when we are surrounded by them constantly. Our eyes have to be open to recognize what is going on right in front of us.

So until tomorrow…In this world of conflict, distrust, thinly veiled racism and intolerance…let’s make a promise for 2017…that we will venture out of our own comfort zones and comfort others we see in need…with a hug!

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh