Hands connect us to one another in a unique and precious way. In VST’s last days, he chose to spend time on “the death couch” as he referred to it. He first recoiled at the thought of opening the hide-a-bed in the living room, but later, chose it often to rest next to me in the busy part of the house. He slept while I snapped this, or he would have protested that any part of our nightmare called cancer was documented in this way. Images have a way of returning us to captured moments. We were captured by the hell that is cancer.
My own hands are large, functional Germanic woman-hands. The kind that get things done. Size ten ring finger. Not a dainty, girly-girl digit in the bunch. They attempted to help me play piano when I was little, but constantly flew in directions not conducive to a beautiful melody. My mom was crushed. They also attempted to help me with guitar. They easily wrapped around the neck, depressing strings to make keys that hummed in a 1970’s kind of Glen Campbell way for a time.
Through the years, they held young lovers, wrote term papers, dialed phone numbers and twirled the cord late into the night. They pointed and shook at boys that needed to leave me alone, and beckoned those I wished didn’t. They raised Guide Dogs for the Blind, delivered brand new puppies into the world, trained dogs, and held their paws as they took their last breath. They irrigated grapes and helped shake them after they turned into raisins. They washed a squirmy grandson and splashed with him until we were showered with delightful fun in the bathroom. These days, they hold Oliver in the silent mornings when I wish VST was still here to share our morning coffee. They wipe my own tears and help me move on through this blog.
In the beginning of VST/Me, our hands were busy with life. Every aspect. Work, personal, spiritual, family, and educational growth. Through the years, VST used his massive mitts in the gentlest of ways. Holding a daughter’s precious hand at the country fair, leaving an imprint on her heart that warms her still today. His hands wielded wrenches, and twins, a boy and a girl, when he was 21. They held steering wheels, traveling millions of miles in his lifetime. They built houses, waterfalls, great walls, and our life together. They wrote his dissertation and earned him the loving title Doctor H. Later in life, they caused him intense and extreme pain with arthritis and paralysis.
When we were together, our hands were often intertwined. After decades of marriage, often on a trip to Lowe’s I would be in my own writer’s head. And there he would be, on a cold parking-lot morning at Lowe’s grabbing mine. People would smile at us in that way. How adorable, these two sage lovers. And that is what we were, even if we had just argued the whole way there about an insignificant topic of the day that found us at odds. I would feel his hand reach for mine, and I was home, wherever we found ourselves.
Hands held each other when he had no more strength to reach for me in the night. My hands helped him take morphine and other hideous drugs, less horrible than the cancer that robbed him from me. They wiped his brow when he was feverish. They helped him into the passenger side of the Jeep to travel to the doctor, when it was me that took the wheel while he slept. They put soft blankets around him when he suddenly found himself bone chillingly cold. And more than a few times, they shook at the heavens, questioning WHY.
Finally, in one last touch, it was my hand stroking his cheek that said Goodbye to him as he was making his final exit on that beautiful Virginia City morning. My hands cradled his urn and wondered how this all transpired in nine weeks.
Hands need to find each other and hold on. Touch is a precious sense that can speak louder than words at times. Caresses feed starved skin and comfort a bruised soul. Use your hands to produce acts of kindness. Wave. Open a door. Greet someone you haven’t seen for awhile in spite of Covid, or because of it. Clap for others. Journal your life. Connect with each other. Hold hands as you cross the street, and be so grateful that you have another’s hand, if only for a time.
Letting You Go
You saved me when I needed saving so badly.
You have been the one to hold me, to cheer me, to love me, to teach me.
You.
It was you from the first look.
It was you from the YES to your proposal.
And, it is you now.
I need to let you fly with the wind, with the angels, to the arms of God and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Please wait for me. Please be my guardian angel and help me across when my day comes.
Thank you, My Golden Friend, My Bold Lover.
My heart will beat to remind me I need to stay here a little while longer.
I will remember our sweet story, smile, and share it often.
Because you and I are, and always will be pure love. Period.
I say these things not knowing HOW I can let you go.
But
Knowing I must.
Take my love with you, and find me when I finish my time on earth.
I love you most…
Even though I know you love me more.
Your Darlin Forever, Mrs. H
JH April 6, 2020