Hands

I don't think she ever got a manicure in her life.

I'll have to ask. Grandmom's fingers were twisted from arthritis, red from ten thousand pans of hot dish water and heavy pan lifting. At market, she expertly knuckled tomatoes and peppers, gingerly held up ginger and mushrooms to muster eye-level confirmation of her digital inspection, and in kitchen she still firmly grasped the very well-honed chef's blade.

She left Mom her knives. The tines are still good. The handles have seen better days, and the 10" blade is now probably 8-1/2", with the thickest part sharpened down to barely more than a paring knife. But it cuts.

Everything made it through multiple uses. Plastic bags ended up rinsed, inverted on the dish drain or hanging by clips from a line. Paper towels, rung out, draped over cups. Tin foil was crinkled and wrinkled, folded and creased before being replaced in a drawer. New towels sat unused in the drawer, so each visit one or another of us would spirit an old one out when she wasn't looking. They had no fluff left, no absorbancy. They weren't even good for washing cars or dogs.

The knuckle tips on her right hand were askew perhaps 30 degrees from the main digits. From scrubbing? Gripping? When she curled it around the scotch tumbler she had me pour - "two fingers, dear - you're having a drink too, aren't you?" she left no doubt that the glass would remain firmly grasped, whatever the color or angle of her fingers.

At 93 she finally let loose her grip, before I would. As she lay in the bed at CHOMP, many of her offspring milling around the waiting area, children hanging over the benches to look at the koi in the indoor pond, adults doing the low-volume huddles here and there, seated in the neutral-colored fabric chairs, I took my turn at bedside. My aunt, a physician, patiently explained to my younger son what each of the tubes were for. "What's this?" he'd chirp, one after another, fascinated at the dials and fluids and, oh, GG, who was awake and smiling. I gripped her hand and looked at her face and she said, finally, you can let go, when it appeared I wouldn't.

I think she smiled. It would make sense if she smiled. I'll remember it that way, arrange her lips and mouth just so, put the words in her voice, in my mind's ear. We'll hear the timbre and the silence and feel goosebumps and it may as well be her hands that held mine and let go, finally, when they finally let go.