This Grandpa's Hands
Circa September 2005
This Grandpa, at eighty plus years, sat on a lounge chair in the back patio at pool side. I didn't move, I just sat with my head down staring at my hands.
One of my visiting grandsons came out and sat down next to me, and asked, "Are you OK, Grandpa?"
I raised my head and looked at him and smiled. "Yes, I'm fine, thank you for asking," I said in a clear strong voice.
"I didn't mean to disturb you, grandpa, but you were just sitting there staring at your
hands and I wanted to make sure you were OK." he said.
I said "Have you ever looked at your hands,...I mean really looked at your hands?"
I slowly opened my hands and stared down at them. I turned them over, palms up and then palms down. Then I said, "Stop and think for a moment about the hands you have, how they have
served you well throughout your years. These hands, though wrinkled, shriveled and and getting weak have been the tools I have used all my life to reach out and grab and embrace life."
"They braced and caught my fall when as a toddler I crashed upon the floor. They put food in my mouth and clothes on my back. As a child my mother taught me to fold them in prayer. They tied my shoes and pulled on my boots. They pulled the trigger on my 50 caliber machine gun and wiped my tears when I went off to war in WW II. These are the hands that clasped and locked on to the lifeline the men of the USS Twiggs tossed at me in the shark infested Sulu Sea on January 4, 1945 and saved my life.
"They have been dirty, scraped and raw, swollen and bent. Decorated with my wedding band they showed the world that I was married and loved someone special. They dried the tears off my three daughters and caressed the love of my life. They were uneasy and clumsy when I tried to hold my first born daughter after I returned from Korea in 1953 or my last, seconds after being born in Peru in 1965.
"They wrote letters home and trembled and shook when I buried my parents and when I walked my three daughters down the aisle.
"Yet, just this summer they were strong and sure when I put the rototiller to the grind to show your father and my two other sons-in-laws how it is done.
These are the hands that flew the J-3 in which I took your granma Bibi, your mother and your ants for rides on cool fall days, and because I do not fly anymore, you call me US2B.
"These hands have held children, consoled neighbors, and shook in fits of anger when I didn't understand. They have covered my face, combed my hair, and washed and cleansed the rest of my body. They have been sticky and wet, bent and broken, dried and raw. And to this day when not much of anything else of me works real well these hands hold me up, lay me down, and again continue to fold in prayer.
"These hands are the mark of where I've been and the ruggedness of my life.
"But more importantly it will be these hands that God will reach out and take when he leads me home. And with my hands He will lift me to His side and there I will use these hands to touch the most sacred."
"You, too," I told my grandson, "should want to touch the face of God and feel his hands upon your face."
These hands, though wrinkled, shriveled and and getting weak have been the tools I have used all my life to reach out and grab and embrace life.
Ur Grandpa US2B