My Mother's Hands

My mother passed away just before Christmas. She was 90 years old. The thirteenth of fifteen children, she was the last survivor. Having missed my father for over twenty years, it was time for her to go, and we were happy, thinking of the joyous reunion she would experience with her beloved John, her parents, and all of her siblings who had gone before.

My mother had married at the age of eighteen, poor health having prevented her from finishing high school. She had gone through a great deal of pain and sacrifice, even against medical advice, to give birth to eight children. Her poor health and challenging finances and living conditions (we all lived in a one?bedroom house heated only by wood?burning stoves) had made life a struggle for her. After five boys, I had been her first daughter. Then twins, a boy and a girl, came two years later.

I did not foresee how her passing would affect me. For one thing, I became aware of the fact that my husband and I were now the oldest generation. (The last survivor of our parents' generation in my husband's family had passed away just a month before my mother.) No buffer of parents now between our life and our death; we would be the next to go. That's a sobering realization. These items, along with my having another birthday right after Christmas, provided me with an abrupt awareness of my own mortality. Like, maybe I'd better finally get my act together. But that is not what this article is about.

The last time I was with my mother, just prior to her passing, I knelt by her bed where she seemed to be in deep slumber−one from which she would not awaken, I took her aged hand in mine. It was so soft, so fragile, the skin translucent, like that of a baby bird before growing its feathers, bones and wrinkles and veins prominent. Even at my younger age, my own hands look very much like hers. My daughter even noticed and remarked years ago when she was small: "Your hands look just like Grandma's."

Now I held my mother's hand and tearfully stroked and kissed it. I thought of her hands and all they symbolized to me. Her life of service and sacrifice in raising eight children. The uncountable hours of cooking, cleaning, sewing. Labors of love?that is what her hands represented to me.

I remember being a young child and my mother reading to us The Secret Garden. I was fascinated by the way her hands held the book, the way her fingers turned the pages. I loved it when she complied with my requests for her to draw for me. I watched, spellbound, as she sketched, her hand and pencil magically transforming plain white paper into beautiful ladies in gorgeous gowns.

As a child, I believed that having my mother's hand on my forehead was an integral prerequisite for being able to throw up. Once, when I was sick and felt the need to vomit, my mother was nowhere in sight. Knowing that I could not throw up without her hand on my forehead, I called out frantically for my older brother to hurry and come quickly to perform the necessary task so I could proceed.

I recall one Christmastime, when I was a little girl, observing my mother sewing doll clothes on her little black Singer straight?stitch sewing machine that had been purchased in 1936. As I watched her making those doll clothes, I inquired as to who they were for. "Oh, they're for a little girl just about your age," she had replied. "Does that little girl have a doll?" I asked innocently, too naive to guess that they were for me.

From the time I was a baby, my mother sewed most of my clothes. In grade school, other little girls were envious of my handmade dresses, they were so pretty. I remember once, as a teenager, my trying on a beautiful dress in a store, but it was too expensive to buy. My mother took mental notes, however, and went home and created a replica of that lovely dress.

I thought of the beautifully tailored suits she had painstakingly sewn for me so I would be dressed appropriately to represent Idaho in competing for the title of Miss Future Business Leader of America for 1969, when I was a senior in high school. She sewed my entire college wardrobe. Her skilled hands crafted beautiful dresses and formal gowns of velvet and lace, of white brocade with white fur cuffs, and of Georgette chiffon that made me feel elegant as I danced and swirled through college.

Now I held my dear mother's hand, knowing that she would linger only a short time longer. I said my goodbyes, telling her of my love, expressing my deepest gratitude for all she was and for all she had done for me. So much of what I am came from her. She was naturally gifted, though untrained, in writing, singing, dancing, sketching, speech, and drama. Her talents enriched my own life immeasurably as she shared, taught, and coached me. But it is her hands that symbolize most for me her loving service. I'm grateful for my own hands, even with veins, bones, and wrinkles prominent. Because now, when I miss her, when I miss seeing her soft, fragile, aged hands, I will look at my own, since they "look just like Grandma's."

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