Hands are funny things, really. They are the parts of our own body that we see the most. Or at least I do—I see them as I write, as I chop potatoes, as I scrub out the refrigerator or touch my daughter’s hair. I see my own hands hundreds of times each day. And yet despite that intense familiarity—or maybe because of it—I don’t pay that much attention to how they look.
But, once in awhile, my hands sneak up on me, and I am surprised by them. Sometimes, when I least expect it, I will catch a glimpse of my own hands and catch my breath. They look like something that doesn’t belong to me. They don’t look like me to me. It’s like when I look sideways at my own reflection in the window of a shiny building: Is my hair really that big? Do I look that—shall we say—eccentric all the time?
But, my hands are different. Because it’s not just that they don’t look like me, it’s that they do look like other hands I know. In fact, they look like hands that I know almost as well as I know my own. They look so much like my mother’s hands, it’s breathtaking. Skinny little fingers, bony knuckles, rings that swing around backwards because of the combination. The nails are short and nearly always have some traces of the garden under them.
But, it is not just my mother. It’s my grandmother, too. As she aged, her skin got so thin you could see right through it. You could see the veins and the tendons. It seemed as if the bones were barely below the surface. Her hands were always nicked and scratched. Even the slightest bump would draw blood.
Thin skinned, yes, and in more ways than the literal. And now, that’s me, too. I nearly always have a Band-Aid on one of my hands or a scrape that I cannot explain beyond an unrecalled bump. But, there they are, my grandmother’s hands. The blue veins, the protruding tendons, and soon probably, the speckled age spots.
I do not think I am going to get any side work as a hand model. But, today, as I really look at my hands, I am awash in gratitude. Of course, I am grateful that I have functioning, durable, hard-working hands. But, I am also glad to have the company. I am grateful to have the tangible, sentient reminders of my mother and grandmother—and probably great grandmother, too—right in front of me. Right here on my keyboard and my steering wheel and my broom handle.
It is like these women are reaching right down through the generations and helping me wipe the cake crumbs off the counter or patting my daughter’s back as she goes to sleep. Lately, I have been sneaking little looks at Ruby’s hands, and at Violet’s. And yes, I can see the lineage there. Their small hands already have the markers. Violet has the high veins and the frayed cuticles. Ruby has the long fingers and the narrow palms. I am grateful for that, too. I know that there will be days that they will be lonely and tired and bewildered. And I hope for all the world to be there with them. But, if I am not, I hope that they will look down at their hands and see us all there with them. In them. I hope they’ll find—in their own hands—comfort and gratitude and love.
