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October 15, 2004
Grandma's Hands
The following is from a little manuscript I put together about 10 years ago called Ache for Eternity: A Journey in Verse, a collection of my poems up until that time. Here on out it will simply be referred to as AFE.
Grandma's Hands
Grandma's hands were smooth and white
When I was a child.
And labored long at tasks untold
From dawn till well past setting sun,
And sometimes cuffed me into line
Along with words though stern, still kind
To make a young boy wise.
And when I'd grown
They'd labor still
Well into the night
With untold thimbled needle thrusts
Punctuating time.
But then they were but skin on bones
That wrinkled up in mine
As hand in hand we'd talk and sit;
I'd listen with delight,
To tales of life and love and woe
And watch those transparent hands in mine
And see the blood go coursing by.
Grandma's hands were smooth and white
When I was a child.
Grandma's are typically known for hugs and kisses and showers of love and favors. I imagine any Grandma worth her salt, though, should also be good at that tough love that won't over look correction when it is needed as well. My Mom's Mom was not typical in that first sense of being a fountain of smother love, but love ran deep instead, rarely expressed in a streaming out of affection, but always coursing in an unexpressed desire that my brothers and I grow up properly. She taught through example and by correction working hard and doing your duty was important in life.
You may have gathered that we spent quite bit of time with our Grandma. Coming home to America for furloughs with Daddy still working in Pakistan meant that Grandma did have some role in our formation. Her kind of loving then was more akin to the loving of a parent, which of necessity required that hard hand at times.
To be sure it wasn't by any means a hard hand all the time. Birthdays and Christmas always meant a gift of ten dollars for each of us in an expression of that practical, but yet so real love. And time worked in our love a sweet mellowing that flowed out in gentle affection when we were grown, for better or worse, and her work in us was done. And like her aging hands that showed every vein and tiny capillary through transparent skin, the deep love showed.
Ache for Eternity | By jackdas | 10:23 AM
