Your Hands – December 13, 2020

On November 11, 2020, at just about 2 in the morning my very beloved dad took his last breath and his spirit left his earthly body.  He was the most amazing dad.  Everyone who knew him says “what a guy.” The first man to love me, someone said the week he died. My first hero. He lived 89 creative, insanely curious, loyal, honorable and love-filled years. His body came to the end of its road; it was time for him to leave us.  I can’t see how I’m ever going to wrap my head and heart around his not being here anymore. Not to hear that baritone voice say “I love you sweetheart.” Or the touch of his warm hands. I will miss his presence for the rest of my days. But more than all of this, I feel steeped in gratitude for the good fortune of having this guy in my life for almost 59 years. How lucky are we who love him.

In preparation for what ended up being the most incredible virtual memorial – yes, over Zoom, like so much of life in 2020 – on December 13th, I woke one morning at 3am, unable to sleep.  I thought what the heck.  I got my laptop, and crawled back under the covers. I suspected there was something in me that wanted to come through about my dad… about his hands, his being a “hands-on” person and the incredible quality of his attention. This is what ended up in the Word doc.

Your Hands

As I cuddled with you,
sat by your side in your last days,
I held your hands.

The ones that you told me were often sweaty in your youth,
like mine were.
You had such sympathy for me.
You said the moisture made marks on your books
where you held them,
as you walked back and forth to school.

Not as warm as they always were.
Your systems were shutting down.
But I held them and marveled – how they had served us all for 89 years!

Let’s start here:
These hands put a ring on her finger
with a promise you kept for more than 60 years,
forming the foundation of our family.

I can see them still,
tying feathers on tiny, barbed hooks,
drizzling water over spinning clay,
sprinkling flat tomato seeds onto vermiculite,
carefully lining up the nail set on the finishing nail,
outer fingers fanned out on the wood for stability.
I can see them carefully getting ahold of the corner of the thin-thin paper
of the big Random House,
heading for yet another word’s definition.

All told, how many hundreds of hours did they hold a chef’s knife,
cutting up countless onions?
Using them, how many Band-aids did Dr. Brown
stretch over skinned knees and bloody stubbed toes,
as we sat on the blue toilet seat in the hall bath?
They attended to so much of life for you,
for us.

Not long ago you told me
you used them to pick me up –
your little girl, pink and white, peaches and cream.
You held my tiny toddler hand in your strong one,
as you danced with me around the living room.
And you didn’t even like to dance!

Besides all this, there’s something more,
maybe even more precious.
Papa, you were never aloof, never distant.
Present, interested. Always.
(Except when you napped – you had to get away from us sometime,
somehow!)

What a thing it was to be someone’s priority!
To know we mattered,
supremely mattered.

It was you who took us to have our wisdom teeth out,
and then nursed us afterwards.
It was you who took the time to teach us,
how to use our own hands,
how to make stuff,
how to teach ourselves.

You taught us the ways of growing plants to fill our bellies,
of making delicious meals to sustain our lives –
and our family.
You made sure not one of us was left
unable to feed ourselves.

Papa, you were a hands-on guy.
The dictionary says
(you gave us this compulsion too)
this means you were actively, personally involved.
I say it means you cared –
and you put yourself squarely in the midst of your caring.

Wordsworth said: “What we have loved,
others will love, and we will teach them how…”
Everyone who knows you, even just a little, knows
you freely loved what you loved.
And you loved so many things –
good stories, soaring arias, raunchy greeting cards, Wikipedia, oysters –
an impossibly long list.
At the top of this list, the tippy, tippy top
is us.
You so loved us.

There is no measure of the legacy of this.
You have left us with capable hands,
and hearts to match.

Going out on a limb, I speak
for us all.
And by all, I mean not just your family.
We promise you we’ll do our best
to use our hands – and our hearts – as you did.
You would say we are up to it,
that we already do.
If that is true,
you taught us how.

Papa, my sweet, kind, wise, funny-funny, oh-so-handsome,
forever-loved Papa, it is finished.
You can now rest in eternity.
Your work here is done.

Cara – December 9, 2020