My hand held my Daddy’s hand as I walked the fields with him in the early morning light while the dew was still wet upon the ground. The sunrise was just moments away from bringing in the new day.
My hands were folded together as Daddy said grace before each meal, while my eyes were on the pancakes and bacon, hoping no one noticed. My sisters were giggling and kicking me under the table.
My hands mapped a path across the pages of my first book, wanting to know more yet never in a hurry to finish the story. It was possible in a book to travel to distant lands or dream of unexplored planets far across the universe.
My hands held my wife’s hand as I put a ring on her finger promising a lifetime of love and living, facing together the storms of life, we promised courage, faith and love. We dreamed of the twilight years where the moments are ours alone sharing memories and making even more to put away in our collage of memories.
My hands held my children and then my grandchildren, feeling a love without end, watching them grow and holding them close in times of need and in times of celebration. They are the gift cherished as we grow older, the moments to be savored.
My hand petted my first dogs, promising I would never abandon them, and that I would sit with them through the end of their journey. I would fulfill a promise to rescue another when they passed over, that our life would always have at least one dog or cat to walk down The Dirt Road with us on an Autumn morning.
My hands write these stories knowing if I don’t, they will fade away to be forgotten, and my children will never know their legacy and the ones that came before them. I would hope that their hands would write the stories of a new generation, a generation that may never know about The Dirt Road.
Someday my hands will reach across the front porch to hold my wife’s hand, pet my dogs and watch our grandchildren playing in our yard, hearing the joy of their laughter. This is the time we waited for, the time we prepared for them and for us to cherish.
Someday my hands will rest upon my chest and with a full life lived I will once again fold them together and give thanks for a good life, the best life.
Glowing with love as always. What a privilege it is for to have met your wonderful soul, Larry. My mother loves to cite her own mother (my Italian grandmother who died before my parents got married) who used to say that hands are more priceless than silver spoons – ‘più impagabile dei cucchiai d’argento.’
Thank you for your kindness
Fascinating article and topic that reminds me of an episode.
One day in the company we had called a photographer for some promotional activities. At one point a photographer asked me if he could only photograph my hands and then use this photo for his initiatives. I agreed because I didn’t see anything special in my hands but, from that moment, I began to observe those of others and to take an interest in this aspect.
They tell more the hands of a face. The face can dissemble, digress, deceive, while the hands do not lie. And above all the hands – while being unique just like a face – allow that anonymity that is often a necessary condition for accepting to open up and talk about oneself.
A long story passes through the hands of mothers and fathers and children. The hands of our parents are the first that we begin to know: the hands tell distant stories and tell about us. Careful and smooth, imposing and calloused, small and delicate, strong and powerful, we express ourselves through our hands and with a single handshake we can talk even without saying anything. Unparalleled work tool, the hands are a vehicle to be able to do and feel, bringing us closer to others and to things.
Think: crumble the clods of earth between your fingers, dip your hands in the damp soil, take possession of the more or less sandy, clayey, or stony and coarse consistency, the material tells of itself and only the hands can make it a direct interlocutor, as a source of a life that keeps us anchored to what we all come from and to which we will all return one day.
Let’s think about what the hands can do for the porsone afflicted by deafness or blindness.
Thank you my friend what amazing feedback you shared. When you comment it always seems like a story within a story.
Thanks to you, Larry, you reminded me of a curious episode in my life that pushed me to be intrigued by things I never thought of.
I enjoy your responds