Reply #11: I wrote this a few months ago [View All]

for my Nana. :)

Hands

My hands have changed lately.

Like most of me, they're no longer the picture of youth they once were. It makes me sad. The knuckles are beginning to thicken, much like my middle. Veins are beginning to be a bit more prominent. I'm only 36! I don't want to have old lady hands yet. My face retains the baby fat look of someone much younger, but my hands are a dead giveaway.

Then one day while typing, I look down and a strange realization hits me. These aren't my hands. These are Nana's hands. My nana who grew up in the hills of Kentucky, a relative of Loretta Lynn and living a life quite the same as was chronicled in the movie "Coal Miner's Daughter." My nana who, married at 14, had 3 children before she was 18. My nana whose first husband (and my father's father) killed himself by drinking poison on her porch while in a drunken rage at her taking nursing classes at night, where she was to his mind, assuredly "sleeping around on him."

Nana went on to marry again, and get her nursing degree. She never had an easy life. Her second husband died of a heart attack after only a few years. She had to work 12-16 hour shifts on her bad feet and knees to support herself and her family. She was a peculiar lady, ridiculing you in one breath about your appearance, and hugging you with a fiercness that threatened to squeeze the very essence out of you in the other. And laughing. She had an amazing laugh, just annoyingly nasal enough to make you laugh along with her, even if it was at you. Always had a 6-pack of some horrid beer in the fridge, despite being a very devout Presbyterian, said it "settled her stomach." ;)

My youngest child is named for Nana. She passed into the ether a few years ago. I have inherited from her bad knees, bad eyesight, and my hands. Now when I look at them, I'm no longer concerned about lost looks. Instead, I smile. :)