This post is also available in: 
As a child I was blessed with two grandmothers.
Two wonderful women, strong-willed, powerful, and, in many ways, each others opposites in life. United in me, for I was named after both of them.
One showed, taught me love for music, the piano, and, what was than called, proper behavior.
She awoke the eagerness in me to learn to play from the heart, and without knowing one note, she let me play her piano, let me find my groove.
One showed, taught me the love of a mother, unconditional love, for her children and children’s children. She taught me the value of acceptance and silence.
She taught me how to cook certain dishes, how to crochet, she always seem to have a freshly crocheted pair of nice, warm socks available when we saw her. I still cherish the bedspread she made me, precious.
Both my grandmothers used their hands intensely, either to play music, to care, or, to create.
One was always concerned about her hands, always caring, her hands were her life.
The other was always moving them, working them, never, almost never still in her lap.
As they both aged I noticed myself sitting hand in hand with one grandmother whenever we met.
Completly loved, in stillness, in conversation in connection with each other.
I felt her hands, the energy, and the lines.
And when caring for my other grandmother, I noticed the exact same.
Same hands, same lines, same energy.
I am blessed to have had both my grandmothers in my life for a long time.
So in honor of them, my grandmothers:
My hands,
My hands, they look like yours, I hold them to my face the same way you do.
My hands, they look like yours, they work, have elegant fingers, and veins that shine through the skin.
My hands, they look like yours, although yours are much older.
The lines that cross our hands are similar; we look alike, and walk together through generations.
My hands, they look like yours, we are family.
My hands, they look like yours just as mine will look like my child’s and the ones that come after.
Invisible lines, connected through time, connecting family, hand in hand in hand.
My hands, they look like yours and one day I will cherish my hands in my descendant’s hands, like you do now, in mine.
My hands, they look like yours, they cherish yours as your hands slowly walk out of this life.
We are blessed beyond what we can comprehend. Just look, see, feel and care.