Finding Solace In My Mother’s Hands

As a child, I remember my mother’s hands always looking so perfect, with her perfect manicure and her perfectly supple skin. You could not find a single cut or imperfection; they were, in my eyes, simply flawless.

I believe that the hands of a person tell you about the life they lived, and in my mother’s case, that holds true. As I grew older, I came to notice slight blemishes on my mother’s hands from working overnight at the local diner to make ends meet. I came to notice wrinkles on my mother’s hands from scrubbing the floors clean after each mess my sister and I would leave in our wake. I came to notice tremors in my mother’s hands from all the sleepless nights and coffee needed just to get by.

They say the eyes are the window to the soul. The hands, however, well they tell you about the life lived.

And I realized, as I grew older, that my mother’s were not so perfect after all. And they didn’t need to be, because just like when I was a child and I could not find solace in anything, I’d find them in her hands.

Through thick and thin, trial and tribulation, my mother remains to be a beacon of safety for me. For she was the one who would dust me off anytime I fell on my knees, who would pull me up when I was low and could not get back up, and who would nurture me throughout it all. And with every late-night school project, paper bag lunches, and early morning practice, her hands were the ones who taught me compassion, forgiveness, and patience, in a world where such is rare.

So though they may be creased and worn with age, my mother’s hands hold so much more than just a perfect manicure—they hold all the love she’s ever lived and all the love she has yet to give.

I only hope to have hands as beautiful as my mother’s one day and to return all the love she has shown the world.