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.