My Grandmother's Hands

They speak for themselves...

I remember one day my mom and her sisters sitting around squeezing the skin on their knuckles to see how quickly their skin smoothed back into place. I guess the faster it smoothed out the younger your skin was. I remember wishing my hands looked like my grandma's. Really!

Now, you have to understand, I have a fascination with hands.

All artists do, because for one thing they are very hard to learn to draw correctly, and secondly they are beautiful to draw.

But, I also like the things they say to you.
You can see comfort when they rest lovingly on someone else's hands or shoulders. Strength when they are picking something up, excitement they are waving in the air. Skill while they are whipping up dinner and cleaning the house. I think you get the idea.

My thing with hands goes beyond the normal, you see I am what the nurses like to call a bad stick...
They can never find a vein for my IV's. They hurt me a lot. If you don't believe me ask my husband. He's been there a lot when this happens. The conversation goes something like this..."I am a bad stick" I say. Nurse "Oh, I have been doing this for years, I never have a problem." 30 minutes later I am in tears my hand looks like Hamburger and the nurse says she is "sorry..."  and to tell my next nurse what a bad stick I am. Yeah, I always do, and most always it ends like this.
So maybe you can understand why I am so sensitive about my hands now, and why I am so aware of them.

Being that way also makes me appreciate them so much! I have been able to crochet, knit, draw, paint, and create through some of the awfullest situations with these hands. They allow me to keep my sanity. My mom was astounded as I knit my way through Seed Radiation.

I love my hands!

And now I am beginning to see them as I once wished they would be. I see my grandma's hands on me. Hard work and years of caring for others, I see it there on my hands. Love and comfort, strength and protection, all there...How wonderful. When I pray, when I hold my granddaughter's hands to guide them across the parking lot, when I am reading them a story and pointing to the pictures, there they are again...My grandmother's hands.

I am proud of them, proud to wear them, these hands. They are from generations of hard working, loving women and I share this DNA in my hands. It ties me to these wonderful women.

And I am so grateful to have my grandmother's hands...