Memories

An old woman’s hands floated before me. I couldn’t imagine how they managed to be there, as my arms didn’t have the strength to hold them up.

But there they were, hardy hands with fingers that used to be nimble, fingers that could pick up a penny and pinch a speck of lint off a shirt.

My life is etched into the fabric of my hands, from the marrow of my bones to the lines and folds on the surface of my spotty skin. They belong to a woman who worked hard and enjoyed life without the frivolities of some. These hands were not regulars at a fancy nail salon, nor did they enjoy the luxury of hired household help. These old hands did it all themselves, creating masterpieces from one day to the next.

They were displayed before my eyes like a painting by God. I pretended they belonged to someone else so I could read them as others would, so I would pay close attention as they signed their story for the world to read.

Old hands, they were, yet they showed the beauty of youth behind the layers of age. Anyone could see they belonged to a woman who loved the outdoors. The sunspots and lines spoke of years of too much exposure. They wore short, neat nails representing a desire for cleanliness and usefulness. Ready at a moment’s notice, these hands were. And the knuckles were swollen, evidence of days filled with gardening and sewing and writing, all the things a woman does from day to day throughout her life.

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine what they would smell like. Maybe cream for a baby’s bottom, I decided. Years and years of tending to babies’ bottoms with tube after tube of creams. These hands were never chapped and dry as long as there was a baby in the house. They were a soft and gentle touch, as always was my heart at the mere thought of my children.

And there was paint, I swear. Tiny specks of paint in all different colors, like a rainbow buried in the pores. They were hands used to create bright, happy spaces in whatever home they lived. Hands that baked cookies simply to fill the rooms with the welcoming aromas of melted chocolate chips or warm ginger and cinnamon and raisins. Hands that lit cranberry candles at Christmas time and tied ribbons on all the packages under the tree.

There were veins running every which way on the tops of the hands, more obvious than I’d ever noticed before. Like the ink from a blue ballpoint pen scribbled in every direction. They seemed to be covered with barely more than the skin of an onion, worn as thin as they were.

I was reminded of the worn fabric on the knees of my gardening pants. Hardly any threads left to the fabric and mended so many times, a patch here, a Band-Aid there.

Vulnerable. The pants or the hands? Either or both, I suppose.

These hands were soft to the touch of a child’s forehead as I brushed the hair out of her eyes or held his face as I washed the smear of strawberries off his cherub cheeks. They took care of and nurtured and fixed and held onto and let go of and picked up and put down and received anything and everything a child had to give.

They washed the windows and the children and the dog. They clapped together again and again over years and years of encouraging and praising and congratulating.

And they never stopped.

Two of the fingers were decorated with rings, a wedding ring and a mother’s ring. A sign to the world that these hands belonged to a woman who had been loved from the bottom of a man’s heart and from the sweet innocence of a child. The rings sparkled on the fingers belonging to my own unfailing hands, my faithful, dedicated, never-tiring hands. I was grateful and so proud of them at that moment. Lovely old hands that have served me well.

I felt the cold of the morning air once again. My heart was aching. I could feel it aching through my chest. Was the heaviness because it was struggling? Was my heart failing as it struggled to move the blood through my frozen veins? This was possible, I realized, for surely my veins were frozen shut.

Or was it a heart that was breaking into pieces with the knowledge that I would be leaving soon, leaving all those that I love and hold so close to my heart that there was no longer room for them all? Maybe there is more than one way to die of a broken heart; a heart that is so full of love that it simply hasn’t room for anymore.

Could the weight of all that love finally cause it to tumble down like a stone wall in an earthquake? Big loves and little loves spilling out of my heart every which way, no longer glued together by the ability or the will to take on anymore.

My heart was full, I realized, filled up and overflowing to the point of breaking, releasing all that love back into the world, so it stays behind, stays and fills up the hearts of those it has held so dear and for such a long time.

I decided that was what was happening to me. All the love was flowing out of my heart and into the hearts of those I would soon leave behind. They would always feel that love and know that I left them with the best gift anyone could possibly have to offer.

Once again, I tried to concentrate on voices calling my name in a vague distance, somewhere nearby, but not near enough. I tried to focus on what faces would come into sight if I could call out.

But the faces I saw right then were those of my parents and sketchy fragments of my brothers and sisters. I could see the fog surrounding the valley where we lived and how it lay low, far beneath the mountaintops, and wound its wispy white fingers around the trunks of hundred-year-old trees. The silence of the fog was always beautiful to me. It allowed the mind to travel with nothing more in the way than time.

I saw my father’s face, lined and tanned, his stern mouth turned down in a permanent frown, his square jaw set firm. His appearance was intimidating. He stood six feet three and two hundred thirty pounds, a powerful figure amongst the farming community of my childhood. Yet, if a person dared stand close enough to his mountainous frame and look him in the eye, they would be surprised.

My father’s eyes were so kind, striking hazel eyes with long dark lashes and a touch of mischief, such a contrast to that famous frown. He could set the temperature at a town meeting just by the look in his eyes. They were the only soft things about him.

Mother was a beauty with an impossibly thick southern drawl, a permanent smile, and a laugh that sent our happy hearts sailing. She could change the course of history with a flash of that famous smile. But what she did with it was turn the head and the heart of my father whenever his sour mood needed a little sweetening up. She was mighty in her petiteness, and she ruled the roost in ways he never could, and in ways he certainly never knew. My mother was a master of femininity.

I saw the stone path leading to the front steps of our two-story, wood-framed house. Thick green moss and thyme filled every possible space between the stones. Tiny pink flowers bloomed from somewhere and spread around the ground like confetti.

The roses lining the path were all in bloom, my mother’s prized roses.

As a child, my favorite was Angel Face because I loved the name. I loved saying my favorite rose was Angel Face, like the name itself proved how special it was and how much I knew about roses.

I climbed the stairs slowly, one at a time, not wanting to miss the familiar creak of the third step. It could be heard inside the house if one was paying attention. I remembered how often I knew someone was coming to the door because of that creaky step. I remembered how often I looked expectantly out the window only to find no one there.

The covered porch wrapped around the whole house and was built of cedar milled from trees on our property. Very few porches are built like this these days; spacious, covered porches with lovely cedar decking and ceilings stained clear to let the natural grain of the wood show through.

I sat down in the swing for a moment and felt the gentle movement as I settled in. Countless hours were spent dreaming in that swing. Dreaming of what my life would be, or where I would go and who I would go with. I smiled at the memory of my youthful dreams, so hopeful and full of adventure. Oh, how much time is whiled away by a young girl and her dreams.

The air was thick. I could almost see the humidity. Yet there was something different in this humidity now. Blinking, I tried to clear my vision, looking for the voices.

The clouds parted and a giant ray of sunlight beamed down like you see on the cover of religious calendars or magazines. God Light is what they call it, and it was shining right down on me. How could they miss me with all this God Light shining down on me?

I was forced to close my eyes to keep from being blinded, and I tried to call out but was struck dumb by the sight before my eyes. There was Jack, standing right in front of me with willow branches draped over his arms.

He set them down and then picked them up one at a time, twisting and weaving the tender ends of the branches into intricate wreaths looking like crowns of thorns. But the thorns were nothing more than nubs of new growth with baby leaves attached that became emeralds.

They set themselves snugly in the twisted and braided settings of the wreaths. Then the wreaths became golden, and the brilliant emeralds began to blow away in the breeze, just like the willow leaves they once were.

I tried to catch them, to keep them from blowing away, but the harder I tried, the harder the wind blew, taking all the beauty with it. Everything blew away, including my vision of Jack. I wanted to thank him for the gift, for coming to me, but he was gone; gone in the mist and the fog like everything else. Like my parents and siblings were. And our old house with the creaky step.

Adeline continues next week with Chapter Twelve.