MY MOTHER'S HANDS

They say pictures don’t lie and that it’s also worth a thousand words. Indeed, it’s true.  One specific photograph that comes to mind was taken a couple years ago at my niece, Stephanie’s wedding.  I was presenting to her my mother’s antique ring to wear on her wedding day while the photographer was capturing this meaningful moment for posterity.  Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.  The sentiment was the same for each of my nieces who wore the ring at their own weddings.  Memorable, touching and somehow also revealing was a picture that was taken.    A few weeks after her wedding, I was viewing Stephanie’s wedding proofs and upon seeing one photograph I was instantly taken aback as it appeared my mother’s hand was staring right back at me. Indisputably, it was the same aged, wrinkled and spotted hand that I vividly remember throughout my life—but it instead of hers, it was actually mine.

At one time, my mom’s hands were youthful, soft and tender.  They were the hands to first to touch and hold her four babies just after giving them life.  I imagined her holding each one of us close to her body knowing her love for us would soon overtake the memory of the pain she just endured through giving birth.  Throughout our childhood, her hands touched our fevered heads all the while holding us close while the flu worked its way through our sick bodies.  Lovingly she cradled us to her small frame, rubbed our backs and held our heads while she sang us back to sleep.

Throughout her life, her touch revealed a mixture of the necessary toughness, resiliency, and tenderness required of all moms.   Tough enough to kneed bread or mix dough with her wooden spoon with strength and confidence to bake the best cinnamon sticky buns known to man yet soft enough to wipe away one of our childhood tears.  At times blistered from yard work, scrubbing floors, or tending gardens her hands began to age with spots and wrinkles.  In fear they shook as she saw my then, 3-year-old brother Harry lose his finger to a screen door accident or while she paced the hospital floor in panic when Jimbo’s appendix burst and he was so deathly ill.  She lovingly placed Band-Aid after Band-Aid onto Paul’s fingers, knees, elbows, feet, legs —all imaginary boo-boos-- and yet smiling all the while at the sight of his patch-worked body.  Then there were the times her hands were clenched into frustrated fists in the middle of our childhood arguments as we pushed boundaries and tested her will.  At times, tensed enough to reveal white knuckles while standing back and letting us experiment our tantrums in public, scissors taken to a siblings’ hair or teaching us to drive a stick shift VW, she survived it all.  Her hands lived a full and useful life.

Although we were not a rich family, I realized much later in life that the real wealth of our family was my mother’s industriousness and creativity of her hands.  She could paint, type, sew and bake.  Her hands cut pattern after pattern while making most of my childhood outfits and could paint a water colored portrait with ease.   Bread was baked every Sunday in a kitchen that she transformed with paint and contact paper printed in cherries.  She seemingly was able to make something out of nothing providing my brothers and I the confidence that you can do anything for yourself if you were willing to try.

As I watched my mother aging, her hands changed right along with time.  I noticed the lines and wrinkles seemed like trophies from battles she fought and won and the spots that dated her as a badge of honor. Arthritic and weaker, they no longer baked bread nor sewed and seemed to have lost their strength.  Perhaps it is because she had now passed on her strength to me.  Yet, no matter what they look like over time, to me they were still the most beautiful hands in the world!

I will never need a picture to remind me of her hands or her love.  I need only look down at mine.  She gave me her beautiful hands along with all the necessary lessons I’ll ever need in my life.  And as mine continue to age, I am growing fond of them as they are a constant reminder that my mom is, was and always will be with me.  And like all mothers, she will always be there when I need her the most and not even heaven can keep her away.

Another September has come and will go, but not a day goes by that I don't miss my mom, her touch and love, but hold tight to the thought that she’s but a spiritual fingers-length away.

I LOVE A PARADE!

My dad always said a lot of things over the course of his life that made you think he was either full of himself, full of crap or full of wisdom.  But rarely did you ever forget what he said.   I like to refer to these recitations as “Kirk-isms” because he had one for almost everything for which you could think.  Not a dinner was served without some sort of limerick accompanying our meal.  “A knife, a fork, a bottle and a cork.  And that is how you spell New York.  Can you pass the potatoes?”    The funny thing was, our family heard these lines so often, we thought this was just normal conversation and the Kirk-isms became a part of our lives.  So much so, that not only could my brothers and I recite all his eccentric poems and sayings, our children were able to chime in right along with us the lines from John Whittier’s poem about Barbara Frietche,  “Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country’s flag,” she said.   With humor, I laugh now and ask WHY?  My dad certainly was not the scholarly or literary type.  I mean, we did keep a sport illustrated magazine next to the toilet, and I never saw him read a book so that’s about as literary as he got.  SO, just where did he come up with this stuff?

Our family consisted of four active and highly energetic children.  One girl, three boys in that order.  As most siblings do, we often would be working out our differences in full MMA style and sucking up all the air in our little family room when our dad would walk in and simply say, “Stop it or I’ll knock you into the middle of next week.”    Now we had no clue how one got into the middle of next week, but whatever the wrangle was about came to an immediate halt as some Kirk-isms were meant to be respected.

My dad was an only child who lived a really fun and privileged life but never wanted to grow up, thus my brothers and I benefited from snowmobiles, motorcycles, mini-bikes, fishing, camping, sports, and laughter. He loved a great time, sang “I Love a Parade” at every party, enjoyed a few good beers, and even better he may have belched a bit and teasingly apologize saying, “Oops, I didn’t mean to get that all over you”—all the while wiping your arm.  And after a fun night, he never wanted a party or a visit to end.  But good-byes always needed to be said, and when it all done, he simply sang, “The Party’s Over”.

I know that my dad was a regular kind of guy.  Often overhearing him talk about the good ‘ol days with friends, we knew he got into his share of mischief growing up.  He’d laugh braggadociously and tell the story of when he “borrowed” his parents’ car when he was 12 and drove to the bowling alley.  It didn’t turn out well for him, but he remembered it with glee. Or the time he followed a guy in a extremely slow moving car moving but 10 miles per hour down the  Parkway (which was one lane each way at the time), through the Squirrel Hill Tunnels and into town.  The story was that my dad was so mad for being late for his job, he got out of his car at a stop light, walked up to the guys car and knocked at the window.  When the guy rolled it down, my dad punched the guy in the nose and got back into his car and just continued on his way.  Perhaps it's but an urban legend.  But make no mistake, him getting into trouble and my brothers and I getting into it, were two different beasts.  “Do as I say, not as I do” he’d expect from the four of us.   But the reality was that he knew better than to think we would always toe the line and he’d follow up with, “you better remember to cover your flank!”  To this day, I have no clue what a flank is to be covered, but I knew better than to let him find out about any of my adolescent hi-jinks.

I love and miss my dad so much.  He was one of those people that left an impact on anyone and everyone and is not easily forgotten.  He always said that Friday the 13^th was his lucky day and it served him well as a lieutenant in the 82^nd airborne division of the army.  One day, he was making his 13^th jump out of the plane as the 13^th man on the 13^th stick on Friday the 13^th.   He hated jumping from airplanes, but from that day forward he always said it became his lucky day.  That is, until Friday, September 13, 2010.

He came down with the flu that day, or so they thought.  Days went on and he grew worse, but by the time they realized he had become septic, it was too late. On Sept. 24^th, we all gathered around my dad’s hospital bed for one final party.  But oddly enough he seemed to rebound.  He sat up, he laughed and joked just like he always did, and we all thought he was turning the corner, said our good-nights and left feeling happy he was doing better.  That night, I’m sure he said his nightly prayers, as he always did, closed his eyes and never woke up.  True to the end, he always wanted us to have a good time.

Although he is gone, his Kirk-isms will remain with me always -- not only in my head but deep within my heart.

Happy Friday the 13^th Dad! You were right, it really was your lucky day because mom  was waiting for you ~   XO  Chrissie