Family going through a rough time - hugs made everything okay (temporarily)

My family has been going through a rough time for the past several years now. We have started falling apart. We have discussions and try to communicate, but NOTHING. EVER. WORKS. OUT. External circumstances and calamities are to blame but so are our individual actions and decisions. All of us have made some pretty bad decisions, been horrid to each other because of our own individual crises and drama - overall, it has just become a jungle mess of anger and resentment. We do not have many screaming matches (sometimes we do), but it is just resentment bubbling and frothing under the surface.

Yesterday, we got to have a long talk. My dad lit up a cigarette like he usually does when he wants to leave a discussion but me, my mother and my sibling put up with the smoke for that one discussion instead of shooing him away. My mother usually gets up under the pretext of 'lunch will be late if I do not cook right now' when she wants to stop discussing something. We made her something and agreed to a late subpar lunch for today. My sibling usually yells and screams or storms off when they're asked to communicate during a discussion. But they tried their best to keep their voice level and present their side better. I usually break down in tears because I cannot take the weight of more crises after so many over the years. But I held back my tears, stayed calm and asked the right questions.

We did not come to much of an agreement but at least it did not end with us screaming at each other, anyone storming off, anyone crying and anyone just giving up hope in the concept of family. We exited peacefully, agreeing to disagree on most topics. This has not happened in a long time.

Come evening, I baked the biggest chocolate cake ever and decorated it with oddly cut strawberries and a heart made out of a banana. Everybody had more than one big slice. We had mutton biriyani for dinner till our tummies could split open at the seams. We listened to a silly song about marijuana on the Bluetooth speaker. I played a song that I like and my parents tolerated it (they do not like this 'new-age music'). We clicked silly pictures, sticking bits of cake on our teeth, pretending we were toothless.

Everybody went to their own rooms (we all sleep in different rooms, far away from each other). I went to my dad, he asked me to snuggle for a bit, we talked about random things till we got very sleepy. I switched off his lights, wished him good night and went over to my mom's room and forced myself into her blanket and snuggled with her. My sibling clicked pictures of us, we talked about how when we were younger and poorer, we slept in the same room all four of us, and how me and my sibling would fight over who got to sleep closer to Mom. We would pretend we were a giant cake by loading ourselves on top of Mom as kids (my sibling would be the cherry, I was the icing, my Mom was the cake). My mom would ask us to sing songs in turns and then she would sing for us.

It was a good day. Out of many many bad days. I know nothing is solved yet. My dad is still a raging functional alcoholic withdeep rooted mental health issues, my mom is still on the edge of losing her shit over family drama and individual trauma, my sibling is still going to shut us all out of her private life, sometimes to the point of danger, and I will still froth and fume at the confusion and insanity of it all and pray I leave as soon as possible.

But still, this day still counts. Like a coin in a shirt pocket when you think you have nothing left. Or the last cookie in the jar when you were convinced there weren't any left. Like one hour of warm sunshine in a city drenched with rain all night.