Susan Writes

 “Choose a hand,” my Grand’s mother said.

Three-year-old Dean stopped walking, looked back, and waited for me to catch up. He reached his hand toward mine. “I got Gran!” he shouted. So that windy March day three years ago Dean and I were partners as we walked through the Denver Zoo with his family and Husband. Dean reached up, I reached down, holding hands and watching camels and giraffes and hippos and all the zoo animals.

Choose a hand. All my Grands’ parents say and it sounds much better than what I told my children: you have to hold somebody’s hand. To cross the street. To explore the zoo. To walk a treacherous trail. To stay together in a crowd. To walk up steps.

When I was about nine years old, I held my Granny’s hand and sat beside her on her green chenille couch while she watched As the World Turns. Granny’s hands, strong and slim, had probably dug potatoes and stitched quilt pieces together that day. She focused on the troubles of the people who lived in Oakdale and I pinched the skin on the back of her hand forming a little ridge. I counted the seconds until the ridge flattened.

I held Jo’s hands as I sat beside her and she lay in bed recuperating from a broken hip. My friend’s hands had changed her children’s cloth diapers more than sixty years ago. Washed more dishes in her kitchen sink than have ever been inside my dishwasher. Smoothed many broken hearts during the years that she and her husband owned a funeral home. “Oh, you’ve made my day. Tell me about your family. How are all those little grandchildren?” Jo asked.

“Everybody come in here and hold hands,” Husband’s mother said to call us into her living room before Thanksgiving dinner was served. After her children, grandchildren, and great-grands juggled into place and took a hand, a thankful blessing was offered. Hands dropped quickly as children rushed to their plates. But some hands held, just a moment longer. “Oh, your hand feels so warm,” Grandmother told me.

Dunn’s River Falls, near Ocho Rios on the north coast of Jamaica, is 1,000 feet high, and the rocks lining the bottom are terraced like steps. I watched as twenty people, in one long line, climbed the falls. The river guides had said, “Hold hands, and everyone goes up, linked together.”

We’ve all heard the wedding officiant say, “And now I pronounce you husband and wife.” The newlyweds clasp hands, turn toward their friends and family, and practically skip down the aisle to begin life together. They begin their marriage holding hands. Gripping. Loving. Declaring.

Among the many gems that Robert Fulghum wrote in his book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, are these words: And it is still true, no matter how old you are — when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

How very true. Choose a hand.

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Filed under: Relationships | Tagged: hands, Hold Hands |