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Hands
Hands
My Grandpa’s been gone for a long time,
but what I remember most are his hands.
My Grandpa had these mischievous hands
that would tickle me and hide my toys.
Hands that snuck me cookies after bedtime,
And cuddled me as we watched the Saturday night movie.
I can still remember sitting at the family table mesmerized by
the way Grandpa would rap his thick brown fingers on the table.
The energy as he spoke crackling in lightning flashes,
drumming madly as the discussion gained momentum.
How Grandpa would laugh if he knew I secretly sat
at the table years later trying to be him,
Rapping my fingers like that.
The rhythm of my fingers true as my own heartbeat,
and my great grandfather’s heartbeat before me,
Thump, thump, thump, music to my ears.
We are cut from the same cloth, Grandpa and I.
His humor beats in my veins,
Sure as my own blood, steady as my love for him.
It’s a funny thing, an odd thing really,
a man lives to retirement, raises a family, all these children,
all these grandchildren, has all these accomplishments
and all I can talk about are his hands.
But they are my earliest memory;
hands that could fix anything and
hands that even now I see in my own hands,
sure as my own blood, steady as my love for him.
When Grandpa died a few years back,
I was so grateful to hold his hand in mine for one last time.
His fingers were soft and wrinkled like an old bed sheet.
Even in death his hands had a life of their own.
They were never afraid of too much tenderness.
That is his legacy to me.
And it comforts me.
