The maple’s green hands do not cup
the proliferant rain.
What empties itself falls into the place that is open.
A hand turned upward holds only a single, transparent question.
Unanswerable, humming like bees, it rises, swarms, departs.
Jane Hirshfield
The global pandemic knew no stranger, and most everyone who could stayed home. But in a pristine Swiss birthing clinic, across an ocean and beyond our reach, our only daughter gave birth to our first grandchild, a baby girl. Thousands of miles away, my fingers clasp a photograph her husband sends in real time, just mother and daughter in black and white. Just hands: a curled fist, the size of a teacup, gripping her mama’s long, slender outstretched fingers. Just teacup and kettle. Just this.
Those who study evolution know a great deal about hands. They know that hands do more than just reach and grasp. Most of us have two, and just like the chimps before us, we learn quickly how to swing clubs. Throw rocks. Stave off predators. Even before words, our fists speak for us. Darwin knew this. The strong survive, but where are the hands that harbor the helpless?
My four-year-old granddaughter and I stretch side-by-side on a makeshift mattress. Blackout curtains darken the room. I lean on my elbow, kiss her cheek, chant “Sweet dreams,” then begin to rise.
“No,” she murmurs, close to slumber’s gentle darkness, but not yet there. “Grandma don’t leave me. I’m scared.”
My heart aches, as I listen and remember how, at four, I traced my finger across my bedroom wallpaper, fearful of finding fiery dragons and headless horsemen, but fearful too, of not knowing whether they really existed beyond my grasp. Chastened now, I settle down next to this little girl; fold her body into the curve between my hips and thighs. Joined together, we huddle there, a cornucopia of limbs, our hands snugly entwined, as one.
My grandmother’s hands soar as she speaks. “Like thisa, you see?” With one hand she points, with the other, sifts flour over flattened dough. ‘“Rolla the pin over the table, then break off a little bit. See, here?” She motions with a flick of her wrist. “See?”
I nod. Use my own hands to mimic her movements.
“Now, curla you fingers, this way, yes?” As the dough thins, her accent thickens.
I enclose the dough in my palm’s center. Clench my fingers into a fist. Press my knuckles onto the table. Carefully unfurl my fingers, lift my hand, and spy something soft sitting before me. A curved canoe, no bigger than my pinky. Over and over, we knead; we roll; we curl; we unfurl, until an army of winsome white vessels lines up before us, ready to ride on the saucy waves now simmering on the stove.
There once was a village where lived a wise old woman and three trickster boys. The villagers held the woman in great esteem, but not so the reckless youths, who hoped to shatter the village’s trust by revealing her as a fraud. One day, the cruel boys approached the woman, holding a tiny bird in their hands. Coyly, they requested that she accurately guess whether the bird was alive or dead. The deceptive tricksters knew that either guess would prove her wrong, for no matter how she answered, they controlled the bird’s fate; they could either crush it dead or set it free.
Wise as she was, she saw through their petty ploy and outwitted them with a subtle reply: “Whether the bird lives or dies is not for me to determine,” she chided.“As the bird is in your hands, not mine.”
My mother’s hostile husband lies in a hospital bed, dying. But as we hover around this Bronx butcher, this behemoth, this self-proclaimed bigot with the brutal tongue and the ham hock hands, even we doubt death’s inevitability. We’re certain that he will tighten his grip on denial, will raise his furious fists in defiance, will defeat even God. We’re surprised, then, that he agrees to receive “The Blessing of the Sick.” Not long after, a minister enters his room, a black woman cloaked in white vestments, holding a Bible close to her bountiful breasts. God’s irony. Here lies the dying patient, reluctant to renege; and here stands the minister, leaning over this racist, misogynistic man, in prayer.
“Would you like me to bless you?” she whispers.
“Why not?” he replies, at once averse, yet afraid.
Ever so slowly, she leans closer; places the holy water on his forehead; traces the sign of the cross; then laces her fingers through his in a gesture of commiseration and invites us to join her in prayer. And just like that, God evens the score.
My mother’s usually bejeweled hands lie barren and birdlike on her lap. Fingers overlapping, she methodically taps to a tune only she can hear. Bereft, we watch her, reluctant to say goodbye too soon. And we wait. We wait and watch, even though she barely knows who we are and often disdains our presence, pushes us away with those birdlike fingers, those tiny talons, those feathery, manicured enamel crests, painted by night aides whose hands seek only to offer solace. Dying hands, but not yet. Not until we clutch them between our own fingers and hold on. Helpless to do more, we count her waning breaths: In. Out. In. Out. We turn to the nurse.
“Is she gone?”
She checks Mom’s pulse and shakes her head. We hang on tighter, know that soon, the blue-veined backs of those bony hands will no longer pulse beneath our touch.
“Now,” says the nurse.
We release her, our own hands empty of all but traces of time gone by.
As a child, I yearned for a Timex watch and begged my father to purchase one, but he was resistant, concerned that I was still too young to understand time’s value. Determined to prove him wrong, the next day I sat at the kitchen table as my mother prepared dinner. Knowing she could serve as witness, I vigilantly watched our wall clock’s face, tracking both hands as they moved and chanting the name of each number passed, minutes with the long hand, an hour with the short. The clock ticked, and I sat. Sat until the sun started to sliver its way past the windowpane and Mom began setting out placemats and plates. Sat as I realized what sitting had cost me. Sat while the time to play passed me by, and the time for dinner inched ever closer. Sat as my mind wandered beyond the window, where I saw myself stretched out in our grassy yard, one arm curled beneath my head, my free hand pointing upward toward the sky, counting clouds as the sunlight cast shadows across my face.
Laura Iodice has taught composition and literature and has published, professionally, about both. Since retirement, she’s turned her attention toward crafting creative nonfiction. Her essays have appeared in The Dillydoun Review, Griffel Magazine, The Syndrome, The Furious Gazelle, Balkan Press, Litro U.S. and U.K. and Crack the Spine, among others.
Awsomness 💖
I could vividly see each of the hands you described.