Hold

My job as a small girl was to hold the hands of elderly relatives and neighbors. It was what I did. Mrs. G lived across the street, and I would visit with her, listen to her stories, talk to her, hold her hand, pick at her wicker porch furniture. Later, when she was just lying in a hospital bed in her house, her sister caring for her, I would hold her hand quietly, fascinated by the pattern of blue veins and the soft fragility of her skin. She died the week I started kindergarten.

Mr. M. was also on my rounds, and he told me of being a railroad engineer, and promised to take me for a ride one day. I listened, holding his large, once powerful hands, and dreamed with him of driving a locomotive, and coupling freight cars.

Mrs R. was my next door Italian grandma. I'm told she was the only person I always smiled for as a baby, her hugs were all encompassing. I can still hear her singing my name, welcoming and embracing. I could spend hours in her company, leaning on her as she read. I think she missed me when I grew older, and busier with my life. I missed the simple joy of disappearing into her bosom.

My Grandmother was bedridden for most of my life, her daughter caring for her roughly, she only got up once a day, and later not even that. Her right ear eventually became deformed from lying only on that side, the bed being pushed against the wall on the other side. She seemed a very tall woman to my small self, even lying so still in bed. She spoke very little English, I spoke no French, I held her hand kindly, but with very little attachment. I wonder what kind of mother she actually had been. My father and his sister and brothers often said she would not live through the winter, through the summer, through the winter. She lived to be 95. She remains a cypher who never got my name right.

My Granny, now she was a pistol. Busy, cantankerous, bright and active right up to the end at 93. Had her cane taken away from her the week before she died because she was hitting people with it. Infuriated and monopolized my Aunt Evelyn, coddled my Aunt G. played favorites and Euchre with equal aplomb. My memory of her is largely her relationships with her children, not with me. She had wonderful hands, of great age.

I hold hands. In the face of overwhelming disaster and global suffering, I reach out to one hand, and sit quietly, observing the texture of the skin, the color, the map of veins. I am a tiny girl, being warned not to make a pest of myself, holding very still.