The Great Big Family Hug

Meadow was a small mouse with tremendously big whiskers and an even bigger problem: her family had forgotten how to hug.

It hadn’t always been this way. Once upon a last Tuesday, the entire Mouse family hugged all the time—good morning hugs, found-a-crumb hugs, the-sun-is-shining hugs, and especially the very best just-because hugs. But lately, everyone had become far too busy.

Mama Mouse was busy organizing acorns by size, then by color, then by how nicely they rolled. Papa Mouse was busy building a telescope out of bottle caps to look at the moon. Grandpa Mouse was busy teaching himself to yodel (though he only knew three notes: “Yoo,” “Hoo,” and “Oops-I-forgot-the-rest”). And Meadow’s seven brothers and sisters were busy doing what seven brothers and sisters do best—being loudly, chaotically, magnificently busy.

One evening, Meadow stood in the middle of their cozy mouse hole and announced, “I’m going to find the Great Big Family Hug!”

Everyone stopped what they were doing.

“The great big what-now?” asked Papa Mouse, peering over his bottle-cap telescope.

“The Great Big Family Hug,” Meadow repeated, smoothing her whiskers importantly. “The biggest, squishiest, most wonderful hug in the whole entire world. And when I find it, we’ll remember how to hug again.”

“Hugs don’t get lost, dear,” said Mama Mouse, distracted by a particularly purple acorn.

“Maybe they do,” said Meadow softly. “Maybe they sneak away when nobody’s paying attention.”

Before anyone could stop her (though nobody really tried), Meadow grabbed her favorite red scarf, packed three sunflower seeds and a thimble of dandelion juice, and set off into the darkening garden.

The first creature she met was Cornelius the Toad, who sat on a smooth gray stone looking rather damp and philosophical.

“Excuse me,” said Meadow politely. “Have you seen the Great Big Family Hug?”

Cornelius blinked his copper-colored eyes slowly—so slowly that Meadow wondered if he’d heard her at all. Then he said, “Ribbit. Hugs, you say? When my tadpole-tots were small, we’d all pile together in the pond mud. Squishy and squishy-er. Perhaps the hug you seek is buried somewhere soft?”

Meadow thanked him and dug hopefully in three different mud patches, but found only confused earthworms and a button that had once belonged to someone’s very small coat.

Next, she encountered Ms. Adelaide the Robin, who was tucking her three baby birds into their nest for the night.

“Pardon me,” Meadow called up. “I’m looking for the Great Big Family Hug. Have you seen it flying by?”

Ms. Adelaide ruffled her russet feathers thoughtfully. “Hmm. When the evening comes, I spread my wings over my little ones like this—” she demonstrated, covering her babies in a feathery blanket, “—and we huddle close until morning. Perhaps your hug has wings?”

Meadow tried flapping her arms, but succeeded only in spinning in a dizzy circle. No wings appeared, and no hug either.

Growing sleepy, Meadow found herself at the garden wall where the Hedgehog family lived in a pile of carefully arranged leaves. All nine hedgehogs were rolled into prickly little balls, sleeping in a cluster like spiky plums.

“Pssst,” whispered Meadow to the smallest hedgehog, whose name was Pippin.

Pippin unrolled one eye. “Hrrmph?”

“I’m searching for the Great Big Family Hug. Do you know where it might be hiding?”

Pippin yawned, showing tiny teeth. “We hedgehogs hug very carefully,” he said. “We turn our prickles inward and our soft bellies outward, and we press close despite being afraid we might hurt each other. Perhaps your hug requires bravery?”

Meadow nodded slowly, beginning to understand something important.

As the moon rose higher, painting everything silver, Meadow realized she was rather far from home. The garden suddenly seemed enormous, and she felt very small indeed. Her whiskers drooped. Her red scarf dragged on the ground. One of her sunflower seeds had fallen through a hole in her pocket.

That’s when she heard them.

“Meadow? MEADOW!”

Through the moonlit grass came Papa Mouse with his bottle-cap telescope, Mama Mouse with acorns forgotten in her apron, Grandpa Mouse yodeling all three of his notes as loud as he could, and all seven brothers and sisters tumbling over each other in their hurry.

“We couldn’t find you!” cried her sister Poppy.

“We looked everywhere!” squeaked her brother Thistle.

“We were so worried!” said Mama Mouse, her voice cracking like a tiny bell.

“We forgot about everything else,” added Papa Mouse.

And then—without planning it, without announcing it, without anyone saying “Ready, set, hug”—they all crashed together in one enormous, magnificent, slightly chaotic tangle of tails and whiskers and paws and love.

It was squishy like Cornelius had described. It was sheltering like Ms. Adelaide’s wings. It was brave like the Hedgehog family’s careful embrace. But most of all, it was THEIRS.

“Ohhh,” breathed Meadow, squished in the very middle. “I found it.”

“Found what?” asked Grandpa Mouse, his voice muffled by someone’s ear.

“The Great Big Family Hug,” said Meadow. “It was never lost at all. It was just waiting for us to stop being busy and remember it was here.”

“Well then,” said Mama Mouse, squeezing tighter, “we’d better not forget again.”

“Agreed,” said Papa Mouse.

“Yoo-hoo-oops!” yodeled Grandpa Mouse, which everyone understood meant “Yes!”

And they stayed that way—one big, beautiful, slightly silly family hug—until the moon had moved three whisker-widths across the sky and someone’s foot fell asleep.

They walked home together through the moonlit garden, and when they reached their cozy mouse hole, they had one more hug for good measure. Then another. Then Thistle said, “Just one MORE,” and soon they were all giggling.

That night, Meadow fell asleep knowing that the Great Big Family Hug wasn’t something you found in the garden or the sky or buried in the mud. It was something you made—out of paying attention, and stopping when something matters, and remembering that being together is better than being busy.

And from that day forward, the Mouse family hugged seventeen times more often than before (Meadow kept count). They had sunrise hugs and sunset hugs, found-a-button hugs and it’s-raining-again hugs, and especially the very best we-almost-forgot-but-we-remembered hugs.

Because the truly great big hugs, Meadow learned, are the ones you give to the people you love, right when they need them most.

The End

Sweet dreams, little one. May your own dreams be filled with the coziest hugs of all.

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• Family and Friendship Stories