My Mother's Hands

When I was a child the most treasured of object I could ever perceive to want possession of were my mother's hands.

They were the hands of a woman who worked, they were not always smooth, nor were they always clean but they were to me... everything that had importance and value in my small world.

If I held those hands I was invincible; nothing or no one could harm me.

If those hands were on my person, I was nurtured and petted and loved.

They seemed to hold every secret and every answer I should ever wish to have revealed.

They were not large, nor stubby, nor bony. To me they were the way that hands should always be built.

The palm was warm and the lines were well defined, perfect for crinkling up and smoothing out; a treasure map of unknown future held within.

The fingers with their separate phalanges so filled with mathematical complexities, they fit together, yet were all of different size and proportion. What a miracle of human engineering they were.

On the middle finger of her right hand there lay the single most identifiable characteristic of my mothers hands; a callous on the inner side of the finger about one centimetre below the nail. In a crowd I could be blindfolded and still find her hand.

Once I would have found it, I could celebrate my success by rubbing my head against her hand to feel this bump on my cheek.

My mother's nails were long and strong, yellowed by nicotine, bleach and hard work.

One of my greatest pleasures as a child was filing and painting them shades of pink and purple, so that I might declare;

''Look at my mummy's hands, they're so pretty and I have painted them to make them even prettier...''

I belong in my mother's hands.

They are my cradle.

They are my grave.

They are my table, my hearth, my heart and my bed.

Once they held me when I was too young to know anything else but their touch. Now I barely see them, hardly ever get the chance to rub my own within their dry and ridged warmth.

On a cold day in the bleakest of season, this thought alone might make me weep;

I will never be able to place my thin baby hand into hers again and feel the sense of home that I did then.

But I can hold those hands as they are now and see what time, life and years of hard work have done to my mother's hands.

Then I can look at my own.

I can smile a half sad, half happy grin;

My hands have become hers.

When I look at my hands I see my mother's hands from when I was a little girl.

They're almost identical.

In a funny kind of way it makes sense.

I look at my hands to see my mother's past.

Then I look at my mother's hands...

And see my own future.

16.02.05

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