The story in her hands.

This is a piece I wrote several weeks ago and read at my Grandma's funeral today.

As I look at my Grandma I see someone who looks much different than the woman in my memories. Her body is smaller, more frail, her hair is thin and whiter than I remember. But I look down and notice that with all the changes to her body, and to her mind, her hands remain exactly as I remember them. Strong hands, large for a woman, with square nails and the same age spots that have been present as far back as I can remember. I sat and held her hand and my daughter’s hand at the same time. Two hands on the opposite sides of a life. Molly’s hands that haven’t seen the immense joy coupled with pain that life seems to bring, her small hands struggle to do basic tasks like fasten a button or write her name. These are things my Grandma can no longer do either. She struggles to lift her hand to her face, or pull her blanket up over her lap, with these hands that look the same as the strong and capable hands of my childhood. Hands that shifted gears in her white Nissan Sentra with power and authority. Hands that were always planting flowers, bulbs, shrubs, to satisfy her love of gardening. Now that I finally have a garden of my own there are things I wish I could ask, like what kind of bulbs should I plant here? And how do I transplant this bush from here to there? Her hands painted pictures that hung in my room and will hang in my daughter’s room, both simple pictures of flowers in a vase but beautiful because of the hands that made them. Her hands made me a queen size quilt with patterns of fans, which she hand quilted; a feat I didn’t understand until I tried to make a quilt myself and nearly drove myself crazy in the process. These hands took care of me when I got chicken pox at a family reunion when she put me in her spare bed and fed me mint chocolate chip ice cream once I stopped throwing up. These hands belong to a woman who, when I was sixth grade and driving with her to Roseburg let me listen to the same Bobby Brown cassette tape over and over for the entire 3 hour trip, without complaint. On another road trip she listened as I read to her the Judy Bloom novel I was reading. At the time I thought she was interested, now I know she was being kind to endure it. Once these hands finished a prom dress that turned out to be too difficult for me and my mom. These hands always put extra cheese in the macaroni and cheese, and always took pictures of scenery. Last week at the tulip festival I felt like her when I took picture after picture of fields of flowers. Most importantly, these hands belonged to a Grandma who called me Amber-Bamber, who was always happy and excited to see me and hear about what I was doing, what I’d been up to. I look at these hands and I look at my daughter’s hands, and I hope that the story in my Grandma’s hands will find a way to live in my hands, my children’s hands, and their children's hands. That perhaps someday my hands will tell the same stories of strength and courage, kindness and compassion, and most of all perseverance in the face of great challenges, and an enduring and unbreakable testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ.