Mama's Hands

Ever since I was a child I have had a thing for hands.  I can see my parents hands as if they were in front of me right this minute.  My mama's hands had such soft skin.  They always felt velvety to the touch.  Her skin was olive toned(from her Indian ancestors) and as she aged age spots begin to dot the landscape of those wonderful hands. Her fingers were long, slender, and unadorned. I loved watching her hands at work as she sewed, cooked, wrote....anything.  She would sit for hours with her hands folded in her lap and listen to me.  When I was young and sad or hurt.  I would lay my head in my mama's lap and she would run those beautiful hands through my hair gently.  I loved those hands.  I wanted my hands to grow up and be just like hers.   When my father was diagnosed with cancer the first time.  I was there to see her wringing her hands as the doctor gave the prognosis.  I was there the second and third time the same prognosis was given.  I watched her reach over and take my dad's hand in hers and lovingly look at him with her soft brown eyes so full of love.  I watched her sit beside him in those final days when he was in respite care and those hands fed him, bathed him, stroked his fevered brow.....just as she had done for me when I was but a child.  After my dad passed away and she was in the nursing home I would go by and hold her hand, rub lotion on them for her,  and we would just sit in a comfortable silence.  Her thumb would rub and down my thumb.  One day she put her hand on the arm of the chair beside mine and said very softly, "Look baby, you have my hands."  I looked down and sure enough....there they were...her hands.....complete with tiny age spots.....only these hands were on my body.  I reached up and stroked her face and hair....and simply said...."yep!"  When I am really missing my mom I get out some lotion, rub it in my hands, and sit in the quiet and think back to a time when she was with me.....and I smile.