Four Sets of Hands

One of my goals when we were on our Midwest Adventure, was to get a four generations picture, with Daniel, me, my mom and my gramma. I didn't get the exact picture I was hoping for, but as news of my gramma's hospitalization reached me yesterday, I'm glad we were able to get what we did. This poem came to me tonight. My creativity isn't what it used to be, so I'll likely make some edits to this, but I like the sentiment of history intertwined.

Four Sets of Hands

Four sets of hands

Lay still on the green cloth

Four sets of hands

Representing four lives

Intersecting, intertwined.

The great grandmother’s hand

Still wears the ring of her late love

A testament to her years,

The depth of her heart,

And the fullness of her life.

The grandmother’s hand

Is marked with rheumatoid bumps

Her life has not been easy

And her hand shows the marks

Of a life filled with dream-chasing and dreams fulfilled.

The mother’s hand

is reaching out

first to her elders, gleaning wisdom from experience

and then to her son

as she learns to nurture him.

The baby’s hand

is curled up tight

life is too new

to fully embrace yet

he is drawn to hands:

the safety of his mother’s hands

the delight of his grandmother’s hands

the serenity of his great grandmother’s hands.

he reaches to them

making their hands his own.

- Jen Abbas de Jong

7/30/09