My father has big, thick, wide, meaty
hands. One of them can wrap up your hand and make you feel safe and loved. I
have memories of my youth, memories in which my little hand was swaddled in
his. Daddy’s capable hands could play the rhythms of my
childhood on his guitar, turn pages in my bedtime storybook or help me put on my
snow boots. Even now I love watching one of those big hands pet a dog, because it rubs the dog's head and ears messily all over, the dog leaning into the tender tousling.
I left home almost 25 years ago. Then I got
married and had children. Those big hands cradled my newborns and caressed
their fuzzy little heads, then held my todders’ hands as they set off on
preschooler adventures like a trip to the park. Now those hands grip growing
shoulders as he hugs my teenagers. I still love when I get to see those hands
every few months, even hold one now and again.
Last night, after saying goodbye to my
husband as he headed off to a conference, the kids and I had a passionate
conversation in the car. In that conversation there were deep emotions, raw
feelings. As the conversation dwindled, I felt such conflicted emotion over my
children’s process of sorting out their evolving relationships and changing
social connections and trying not to hurt each other, even though the hurting seems
inevitable in these connections bound by such strong love.
Then something magical happened: a big, thick, wide, meaty hand found mine. It wrapped up my hand just like my father’s used to. It used to be a chubby little mitt, this hand, and now it’s the hand of my father, the hand of a man.
And my heart swelled with pride and love and pain: Pride because he is a gentle, funny, capable, caring, smart and sensitive young man who still wants to connect with me by holding my hand. Love because how could a mother do anything else? And pain because of the process. It's the joyous pain of time passing and transformation and being both a daughter and a mother, of seventeen years that went by in the blink of an eye, and my son’s hand becoming my father’s.
Then something magical happened: a big, thick, wide, meaty hand found mine. It wrapped up my hand just like my father’s used to. It used to be a chubby little mitt, this hand, and now it’s the hand of my father, the hand of a man.
And my heart swelled with pride and love and pain: Pride because he is a gentle, funny, capable, caring, smart and sensitive young man who still wants to connect with me by holding my hand. Love because how could a mother do anything else? And pain because of the process. It's the joyous pain of time passing and transformation and being both a daughter and a mother, of seventeen years that went by in the blink of an eye, and my son’s hand becoming my father’s.
