Hands that loved by heart

My earliest memory of my grandmother was sitting on her lap at the kitchen table. I must’ve been just a toddler. I remember touching her shiny filigree rings and tracing with my finger the soft blue veins that ran up the top of her hands.  I thought that must mean she was very old.  I realize now she was probably then only a handful of years older than I am now.

Today my family will celebrate her life, all 94 years of it. Today we'll bury Gladys Blevins in a little country graveyard in the farmlands of Pennsylvania, next to her beloved Mack.  And we'll look around in awe at all the people whose lives were touched by her wisdom and by her joy.

But today, it's her hands that I keep thinking about.

I couldn’t know as a toddler how much GreatNan's hands would show me over the next forty-two years.

They would teach me how to pick a blue crab and thread a needle.

They would show me how to segment an orange into the perfect fruit salad, and how to drop rivels into a bubbling pot of chicken corn soup.

Her hands would let us kids taste the icing even when a mom said no.

I would see her hands turn baskets of yarn into countless colorful afghans and dishcloths, and thousands of baby caps for NICU preemies.

Her hands showed me how to ‘make a good bed,’ as she would say — how to smooth out cold ironed sheets and tuck in corners tight — and how making a bed is a way to love the person who will sleep in it.

I learned to cut hair by watching her hands, those hands that labored by heart for 45 years, cutting and setting and curling.  They were hands that made women feel beautiful.

Later her hands would teach my boys to play dominoes, and write them cards that called them “Master” on the envelope, the old-fashioned way, and that would make them laugh.

Those hands wrote so many letters and cards and notes. She loved by hand in those notes, and in the thoughtful little gifts she would give.  Watching her hands curl ribbon against sharp scissors was absolute magic to my little kid eyes.  And there was always curled ribbon.  Always.

Whatever her hands did, they did by heart.  They were never idle or selfish. They knew when to hold on tight and when to let go.  And they were never, ever too full.[/mks_pullquote]

But those hands weren’t always soft and gentle.  Sometimes they were a little too firm, like when she scrubbed your hair over that black beauty-shop sink.  Sometimes they were a little fierce, like when she’d pull a baby tooth with a quick flick of a fingernail.  And sometimes those hands were downright bossy — a finger pointing commands in her busy kitchen on Christmas Eve or with a houseful of weekenders at her tiny cottage on the Bay.

But whatever GreatNan’s hands did, they did by heart.  They were never idle or selfish. They knew when to hold on tight and when to let go.  And they were never, ever too full.

With her hands she did big things like raise a family and build a business and serve a community.

But those big things happened because of the million small things her hands did with joy, with gratitude, with generosity, with faith, with perseverance and with love.

The last time I got to hold GreatNan’s hand was three weeks ago.  Much of the family was gathered around pizza at my parent's farm (we sprung her from the nursing home!), and she offered to bless the food for all of us. She clasped her hands, closed her eyes and prayed the prayer of a woman wholly grateful for the gifts of a great God.  She thanked him for her life and then she prayed for courage.

There is a woman described in Proverbs — not a real woman, but an ideal one — one who, as I think about it now, sounds an awful lot like Gladys Blevins.

Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:
 “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

And, finally, it says,

 Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.

I praise you, GreatNan, for the beautiful fruit of your hands, and I know you are being praised in the gates.

But mostly my heart soars, because today you are holding hands with your Lord.

And Lord Jesus, we know that your hand, the one that she holds, bears a scar for what you have done for her — for what you have done for all of us. It is proof of the price you paid so that we might not taste death, but instead — by your grace — be received into your loving hands, forever and ever.

For that, Lord, we join GreatNan, and praise you.

In loving memory of Gladys H. Blevins (1920-2014) — and to grandmothers everywhere whose hands love by heart.