(Crumbs of Candor) These hands, part 1

Published 11:30 am Saturday, March 30, 2024

Swollen and stiff, I flexed my fingers as I came to wakefulness early this morning.

Arthritis is painful in these 62-year-old hands of mine. Yet determined to see the glass half full rather than half empty, I thanked the Lord for those stiff, sore hands. They have served me, and many others, through the years very well. They have given service and received love over and over and over.

Certainly, they were one of my first discoveries, as I am quite sure they popped into my mouth as I salivated all over them as an infant. Later, they clung to my mother’s dress and my beloved baby doll. As a child, those clumsy fingers patted perfect mud pies and decorated them with clover blossoms, dandelions and blades of grass. They picked at scabs and found

four-leaf clovers a plenty. They pointed to a younger sibling as I tattled on them.

They got burned digging a hot potato from the coals in our fireplace.

As I grew, they became more dexterous as I learned to sew my first inadequate stitches of a quilt my great grandmother was making and later as I was carefully taught to measure, cut and piece a quilt of my own.

They were nearly frozen as, gloveless, they shaped and packed snowballs to fire back at my cousins. They wiped dusty sweat from my brown when I finished jumping rope. They tenderly allowed my newest sibling to suck on them until Mom could feed them

At an early age, I learned to fold them reverently as a blessing on the food was said.

When I was about 3, an open window fell on my thumb, crushing it and ripping the flesh open. It was severe enough that we walked to the mouth of the hollow and caught the bus to a nearby town to have a doctor look at it. It still bears a large scar across the pad of the thumb.

When I was 5, the same hand was slammed in a car door. The end of middle finger daggled bloodily white it remained attached with a thin section of skin and flesh. That scar remains as well.

Many tea parties were served to my dollies and siblings with those pudgy hands. They were always busy, often mischievously, such as when I whacked off my younger sister’s blonde curls; or as I continued to gain sewing skills and became adept at shaping biscuits.

That big pencil caused those little fingers to struggle to hold it to form the letters that spelled my name. With them I carefully practiced my writing skills and penmanship until I gained compliments for the beauty of it. Later, in high school, they held the fountain pen as I made scribbles during shorthand class.

As a preteen, they were busy learning housekeeping skills, such as cleaning, cooking, ironing and curling hair.

By age 10, potato peelings became thinner and longer. I picked wild berries and shelled and snapped peas and beans.

They served me well throughout the decades as they developed the dexterity to gingerly retrieve jacks before the ball bounced. They shot marbles, stroked a beloved pet, soothed a younger sibling and waved when I was separated from family or friends.

With a thin stick from a nearby tree used as a wand, they directed music to the TV or radio. They were proudly placed on my chest and I stood tall when a patriotic song came on.

Painstakingly, they eventually managed to help me apply makeup with a light hand and eagerly turned pages in books that captured my undivided attention.

They grew stained as I shelled black walnuts and dry as they assisted with painting the house or patching the plastered walls. They appeared hideous from my bad habit of chewing my fingernails into the quick until they bled; yet I was always conscious of my crooked little finger, along with the smashed thumb and broken middle finger on the same hand. I self-consciously covered it with my other hand, hoping no one would notice. As a teenager, I learned to type and am so grateful for that skill yet today.

Though we were far too poor to own a piano or take lessons, those fingers yearned to create music. After I became a grandmother, we did buy a piano and pay for lessons.

At some point, they were held by a suitor’s hand. That touch excited yet frightened me.

To be continued …