This is something I did for my writing class:
I'd walk a mile for a chance to hold my grandmother's wrinkled hand. The hand once was strong but now has grown soft and frail with age. Each line, spot and knot is a map of her history.
In one line I see her youth in Depression-era Oklahoma. Chasing her younger brother through the woods next to their farm. Turning every page of every book in the school's small library. Sticking a broom handle down cracks in the dry ground just to see how far it would go. In this knot she is making a fist to warn off the other girls from her beau. Then that fist relaxes as she waves good-bye to that boy who joined the Marines at the tail end of World War II.
Those hands have held babies, dried tears and tucked into bed children and grandchildren. She's cooked many a supper, played many a game of cards and raised more than one glass of whiskey. Her hands taught me the joys of dirt and homegrown tomatoes, how to hold a crochet hook and thread a needle and the fine art of making white gravy.
Love is spoken in those wrinkles. I look at my hands and hope that they can one day be as beautiful.
