I have this thing about hands. I feel like hands tell us a story. For example, my favorite set of hands are those of my farmer. Not only are they covered in faded freckles from a lifetime in the sun, but they are strong, dry, calloused and often engrained with some type of grease, even though he scrubs them like crazy. And it never fails, a few knuckles are scabbed from working on equipment coupled with a bruised fingernail or two.

My mother-in-law used to tell me she always knew when her kids were growing because when she would reach down to hold their hands, if they felt different or bigger within the clasp of her fingers, she knew they were changing. Funny how when our children are first born, they use their whole hand to wrap their tiny little fingers around one of ours. For a time, we get to hold their hands inside of ours but not forever.

Another set of hands that still get my attention are those of my dad’s. They are huge, especially his thumbs. All I know, is that when my mom threatened a spanking from my dad, we were all scared. His one hand more than adequately covered the surface of our behinds! We would have much rather had her spatula.

But there is one set of hands I stare at every time I see them. The fingers are long and slim and somewhat frail. The skin that protects them is thin and wrinkled with the veins close to the surface. They are hands that will celebrate 105 years of life this month — they are the hands of my grandmother, who we affectionately call Gan.  

My grandmother's precious hand. She will turn 105 on May 20.

When I hold her hands, which isn’t often enough, I can’t help but think about what those hands have held and what they’ve let go of in the last 105 years; and to what they’ve held tightly and what they’ve released. They are hands that have cooked, cleaned and taught and graded, as she was an English teacher. They are hands that rested in her lap on Sundays as she listened to my grandfather preach.

They are hands whose fingers used to cut out news clippings and pencil messages in Crayola before they were mailed to me and my siblings. They are fingers who have penned countless letters to me before she could no longer write. And they are hands that have held three children, three grandchildren and nine great grandchildren. Hands she raises to this day as her great grandchildren parade into her nursing home room, as she uses her pointer finger to name each of them one by one.

I don’t know how long God will use her hands here on earth, but until he has a heavenly assignment for her, I’ll continue to hold tight as long as I can.