Hands of My Father

Some say eyes are the gateway to the soul. I think it’s in the hands. I was just a girl, perhaps seven or eight, when I stumbled on this belief. I’d look at my dad’s hands, and be struck by a detail as though it held the key that turned all the locks in life. They were big hands with square fingernails. Strong hands with knobby knuckles and a slightly crooked thumb. Tanned, attached to sinewy Popeye forearms. Impressed upon them, it seemed, were the deeds and intentions of his life.

Most evenings, my dad would play his guitar. I’d sit across from him in silence, listening to the melody and watching his fingers play the chords and strum. Somehow, the guitar made room for his hands and he played, skilled and nimble. It was some kind of magic, and taught me the improbable was possible.

Before I truly understood what hard work was, I knew that my dad worked hard. There it was, in his roughened, calloused hands. In the blackened fingernail from a misaimed hammer. Even after he washed them, there in the lines and cracks remained the patina of his trade. He built custom homes and it was his own business, so he’d take me to job sites in the summer. At first, I’d sweep and clean up, then toil with digging and leaning boards on the house so he could pull them onto the roof. Soon, I was using tools and helping with framing. We’d write messages in the walls before closing them up with drywall, not knowing if they’d ever be read. It was invigorating to work hard, to help build a house, sprinkled with a little intrigue. I then understood I was capable, and that work can be enjoyed.

When my parents divorced, my dad was devastated. The outlines of items that once hung on the wall were now ghostly traces, drawn with the thick lead of a construction pencil. There were a lot of omelettes for dinner, with a hodgepodge of ingredients depending on the contents of the fridge. Fast forward a few years, and I watched my dad fall in love again. I was sitting in the bed of an old canopied truck, and it was forgotten I was there. Parked at a store and feeling like I was spying through a looking glass, I watched my dad. His rough hand was poised with tenderness, reaching to touch the hair of a woman that was not my mom. I contented myself with being forgotten. This showed me there can be renewal in life, after suffering great sorrow.

Throughout his life, my dad was a writer. He was inspired by nature, and simplicity in life. His thoughts were everywhere. Reliably, he delivered them to any notepad, napkin, or journal within reach. Sometimes, it was just a telling of what we all did during the day. Other times it was a poem, song lyrics, music notes, a love letter. Just before he died, I visited him in the hospital. He wanted to write something, but didn’t have a pen. I gave him mine. His hand, now diminished by cancer, pressed it to paper. I don’t know what he wrote, but he kept everything, and I hope to one day find his musings from the last day he spent with me on this earth. I now realize that it’s a gift to know one’s innermost self, and that of another.

In my dad’s hands, he carried it all. They changed with the marks of time, there written was his story. When I look at my own hands, I can find him there. The marks of creating and working and building and loving. My own story is there too.