“Sara you have cancer, we must have an operation now. You might not live for more than five years”. I was suddenly surprised to learn what you never know.
I wanted to say goodbye to the two men I am most close to: my son and the friend-lover who had held my hand during part of the way. This news scared them and they moved away. Neither of them gave me a hug; they must have seen my illness or my death as a threat to their lives because they turned into ice men.
I needed a hug and I sought their hugs, but they didn't come. My friends found out and showered me with hearts, kisses, tenderness, caresses, and hugs. Hugs of all types and sizes: long, short, soft, hard, pink, brown, perfumed, tight, wet, even the kind that shake like a washing machine, which sometimes hurt the catheter in my arm.
I want cancer to open doors to hugs for others.
And then, so that I wouldn't be without them, they started giving me shawls, scarves, handkerchiefs, aprons, etc., made of wool, silk, cotton, small ones to cover my bald head, and large ones to wrap around my skeletal body, ravaged by chemotherapy. I became a collector of hugs, which is what I started calling all the fabric that covered me. There were colorful ones, plain ones, fluffy ones, and rough ones. There was one for every mood.
When I was in a lot of pain, I needed a hug. Sometimes two or three. Other times I just wanted to be wrapped up in a hug. My friends and their shawls gave me endless hugs. The hugs comforted me, gave me strength, made me feel a pleasant sensation of warmth and tenderness that made me cry. Through the hugs I rediscovered my own smiles and my desire for dancing.
With cancer we cry a lot. Your body hurts, your head hurts, existence hurts and makes you question everything. I started giving cancer patients hugs and my little fabric hugs too, and then I saw so many smiling faces.
Hugs are that act of affection that say, “You're not alone, I'm with you, everything will be okay,” and they lovingly embrace you and warm your heart.
“The hug route” is something I came up with to tell you that I'm hitting the road, that I'm going on a trip around the world to hug all my friends who are far away and whom I've missed so much. I want to feel you again, even if only for a moment, your smell, your touch... the idiosyncrasies of your being penetrating mine in the symbiosis of a hug.
I want to share with you all the hugs I have received. I would like to express how lucky I feel to have found you in different parts of my journey, and thank you for what you have given me, all the love I have gathered from you through these hugs. Now, if there is one thing left for me to do in this life, it is to give you that hug I never gave you.
As you surely have other friends and companions in those distant countries where you live, I ask you to think of someone near or far who because of their condition (difficult circumstances) needs a special hug from a stranger who understands. I will gladly provide the hug medicine that restored me.
I seek to create a pilgrimage of tenderness, a route of hugs, an embassy of love; a living heritage of our humanity that recognizes the beauty and meaning of all lives and our mutual need to be in relationship and to care for one another.
Just as I have the dream of walking through the Andes with Viki, breathing in Patagonia with Silvia, drinking tea by the Indus River with Ekramia, I would like to walk with people in need because perhaps they are waiting for a hug that never comes, since sometimes our circumstances freeze us.
You can contact me through this website. My backpack is full of hugs to share, and I will walk a little way with you so that you feel the strength to pursue your deepest dreams and reclaim your life.



A big huuuuuuuuuuuuuuggggg,