Grandma's Hands
I close my eyes and can remember Grandma's hands as they gently stroked my head and lulled me to sleep. Those hands swept the hair out off my face and held me close as we rocked. The front room's blue carpeting swirled in a Berber pattern that looked like floral puffs swelling up from the floor. The afternoon sun played across that carpet as we rocked in and out of shadows.
Grandma's hands were hardworking hands, but they never showed their wear. Her nails were of a medium length and usually painted a soft, pleasant shade of something. Those hands made me raisin toast each morning, and washed my face each night. They fed my pet turtle, and replaced him with a goldfish when the turtle lost all his color and seemed to turn to stone. I can see those hands covered with flour as they made cookie dough from scratch, dotted with iodine as they bandaged my knees for the umpteenth time, and raised in the air as they brought a long neck glass bottle of Dr. Pepper to Grandma's parched lips.
—A Taste of Taffy | Mar 2008
