These Hands

I hold your hand as you lie still upon crisp, white sheets and I gaze about this sterile environment thinking about moments from the past - how these hands picked okra on the family farm until they bled during harvest season and gathered eggs from chickens - though many were your pets, how these hands soothed a fevered brow or stirred batter for a birthday cake or prepared casseroles for a friend’s funeral service though you were in mourning, too, how these hands talk without trying to - upward and outward conveys happiness at a big event and downward or clenched relays anger or despair, and how these hands covered your eyes so I wouldn’t see you cry.

As I hold your hand - now pale and still, felled by an insidious stroke, and gaze upon you sleeping, so childlike and vulnerable amidst the beeping of hospital monitors, I know it is my turn to place a hand upon your brow and whisper assurances in your ear that all will be well.