Hands
Apart from the smile that lit up his handsome face, it’s his hands that I remember the most. Strong hands that were always warm, except sometimes during winter, when two of his fingers would turn white – a sign, perhaps, of bad circulation.
These were the hands that held mine, forty years past, as I reluctantly trudged my way to school on a crisp winter’s morning. The hands that pushed sweets through the playground fence when he’d arrived home too late from a night shift to accompany me on the short walk from the house where I grew up.
And it was one of these hands that he laid upon mine as I drove him to the hospital for that last dose of chemo.
The smile was there that day, too. Courageous yet wan, and saying many things. A knowing smile, offering all the love he could muster from a body he knew had let go.
My mother told me they had held hands throughout the last night he was with us.
I screamed myself awake last night; recalling those awful images of his final hour. I’ve picked myself up off the floor before, but this feels like basement – level 4 – and the spiral I took to get down here has left me bruised and chafed at the sides.