These Old Hands

It began to happen at 50 — a small jiggle with a lift of the arm.  An awakening, troubling and true, that the fine lines from laughter have turned into grooves (despite a decade of Botox) and that the tawny spots and bulging veins on my hands look more like my mother's hands than mine.

But I do not loathe these hands.

They connect me with Elenore Allen, who passed away in 2007 and whose hands I can still evoke in pristine memory, every detail, every change. I see the transformation as she moved through her well-manicured 50s into her mid-80s when the veins protruded like purple worms and her fingers would reach out shaking to pull me close.

These hands are my truth.

These are hands, my hands, that held two babies tight and held teenagers tighter as they left to start college, and now jobs in different cities. These are hands that plant hers and write stories and wash dishes and touch my face at night trying to find where my youth went. Over the decades, these hands have gone from bearing velvety skin and long manicured nails to calloused with wormy veins, though, thank God, they are still working even though slightly weaker.

These are hands that clutched a husband's back for our first dance to, “My First, My Last, My Everything,” on a warm Autumn Day. These are hands that have touched the coffins of four grandparents and have placed their photographs throughout my house, so as to keep them forever close.

These hands are my history holders. I am proud of their hard-earned journey.

Our hands, no matter how they appear on the surface, give us the ability to elevate our talents and to dig deep throughout our lives.

These hands of mine have been wrung in grief and lifted in the V of victory. These are hands that will hopefully be able to clutch grandchildren and tap out pages until my final day comes. I am grateful for these aging hands, no longer pretty and smooth. They make everything happen in my life that is good and right.

These hands can keep no secrets, they are the most accurate of lie detector tests. We know a woman's age by a gaze at her hands, even a quick look is a giveaway. We cannot hide from our hands, and why would we want to?

These hands are the forces that keep us growing and producing and showing our love throughout every age.

And while there are days my hands don't seem like mine, they are recognizable. They are the familiar hands of all the women before me. These hands bring my mother back to me every day as I wash dishes and create recipes and dial the phone numbers for children no longer in my nest. They are veiny and spotty and the map of a life that cannot be erased, and their strength allows me to keep adding new chapters.