My Mother's Hands

My Mam always held my hand. From the time I was a little boy, straight up through the last time I was with her, Mama always kept her hand in mine. It started the way it always does, with a Mommy holding their child’s hand in public, for safety. Over the years, it just stayed that way - any time we were walking through the supermarket, shop, or mall, we were hand in hand. During the Portugal years, during weekend errands in open air markets, on family outings around Cascais and neighboring towns, we were always hand in hand. It was natural for us, and the hands fit together like two pieces of one puzzle.

There was an occasion - I was older, maybe twelve or thirteen - when the family was back in the States for the summer break so Daddy could go to the Home Office in New York, and so we could visit the Mosher relatives in Texas and the Blanco relatives in California, when Mama and I were doing some shopping at one of the deparment stores (Sears? Pennys? Montgomery Ward?) and I wandered off. But I found her again. There she was, walking down the aisle, so I trotted up behind her, approaching from her left, and slid into place, taking her hand. Only it felt wrong, so I looked up at her. But it wasn’t her. Oops. The stranger laughed as I ran off to find My Mam.

My Mother and I have the same hands.

My Mother and her mother had the same hands.

I know the landscape of Mama’s hands - the bone structure, the skin texture, the shape of the nails, the length of the fingers, and the curve of the palm. I know the way they feel, and I know the way they feel in my own hands. I can feel them now.

And when I look down at my hands, I see My Mother’s Hands.

Those hands will be with me until the last moment of my life.