Handprints in the Sand

There’s an old poem called “Footprints in the Sand.” It ends with the quiet but powerful words — “I carried you.”

No one truly knows who wrote it. Some say it was an anonymous poet; others believe it came from someone who simply understood faith and pain too deeply to take credit.That poem always meant something to me. I used to read it on the days when life felt heavier than I could carry. But recently, I began to wonder — why footprints? If the heart of the poem is about being carried, shouldn’t it have been handprints in the sand? Maybe it was never just about walking, but about holding. Maybe both hands and feet played their part in the journey.I’ve always been fascinated by hands — their shapes, their lines, their quiet stories. Each one feels like a small universe, unique and unrepeatable. Whether you’re a mystic tracing fate in someone’s palm or a detective comparing fingerprints, you know that no two sets of hands are ever the same.I learned palm reading when I was young. My own hands became my road maps, guiding me through years of change and growth. Both of them carry two distinct markings — a small triangle and the letter M. Some say those marks are signs of strong intuition and purpose. Maybe they’re right. But what I’ve noticed most is how different my two palms are. My right hand feels grounded in this world — the map of my daily life. My left hand, though, holds something spiritual, something beyond the physical.I could talk about each marking and ridge, but instead, I’d rather talk about what they’ve taught me about myself. Over the years, I’ve realized that my personality — my choices, my reactions, my kindness, my stubbornness — has shaped my path far more than any “line of fate.”People sometimes ask me, “Do you believe in God?” or “Do you believe in destiny?” And honestly, I do — but not in a fixed map sort of way. Destiny feels alive to me. It bends, shifts, and redraws itself as we walk through it. My palms have changed over the last fifty years, so why wouldn’t my fate?Still, some parts of me never change. I have worker’s hands — square and strong, the kind that hold on tight when things get rough. My fingertips are soft and rounded — the kind that feel before they act. A palm reader might say that means I’m both practical and deeply emotional. Maybe that’s true.My life lines don’t match. The one on my right hand runs smooth; the one on my left twists and breaks, shaped by years of family struggles, therapy, and learning to rebuild myself. Was that my destiny? Maybe. But it’s not the end of the story — not yet.Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? I’ve asked myself these same questions for decades. For the most part, the answers stayed the same — until the last few years. Somewhere along the way, my perspective shifted. I started to see that change doesn’t destroy destiny; it refines it.In the end, I think of my life as handprints in the sand. Did I carry you, or did you carry me? Maybe it doesn’t matter. The waves will come and wash them all away — both the handprints and the footprints — but for a moment, they were there. Proof that we walked, worked, loved, and lived.Some people say life fades away like the lyrics from a song — “In the end, it doesn’t even matter.” But I can’t believe that. My left hand says otherwise. It tells me there’s another world — a mirror world — where everything we do here shapes what we’ll become there.Maybe that’s why people press their hands together when they pray — two sides meeting in faith. I don’t always pray that way, but I understand the meaning. I prefer to let each hand do what it was meant to — the left to dream, the right to do.And yes, I typed this story with both.