Bumps and bulges and crooked fingers reach out for understanding. Hands have away of telling your story. The work they have done, the art they have created, the soft skin they have caressed. I used to play with the aging loose skin on my grandmothers hands enjoying the feel and movement as i held hers in my own.

My father’s hands scared me; so big and strong and force-ably intimidating. My brother took this picture of my father’s hand the day before he passed away. He put my father’s wrinkled 92 year old hand on top of his much younger palm. It gave me the sense of energy passing from one hand to another. The one giver of life passing and surrendering to the one who remains without him. The hand off of the baton as one crosses over and another continues on.

Bumps and bulges and crooked fingers. I have my father’s hands, crooked, bumpy, aging. I wonder who will hold my hand when it is time for me to pass my baton, about all the hands my father held and comforted and pushed, all my hands have touched throughout my lifetime.

Hands have away of expressing what we feel, who we are, where we came from and where we are going. Bumps, bulges and crooked fingers. I have so much of my father in me. I have my father’s hands.