Hands

Repost from Russisms.com original date May 1 2009:

I was watching the powerpoint I put together for my dad's funeral today, which I rarely do. I can't watch most of it. I seem to hurt myself crying, which is actually funny that my insides are so fragile! I was thinking about the day he died, about how it was so hard to let go of his hands. I was thinking about how much he had done with his hands. How a lifetime, 50 years of pictures showed how much one person had accomplished with his hands. How he had learned to use them as a baby, how he had held his mother, and his blankets and toys. How they helped stabilize him to sit and walk and crawl. I don't know how much it hurts my grandma, but I can imagine, to loose those hands, that boy. 50 years of someone just gone. I think my dad worked his hearts wishes out with his hands. How many tools have been held by those hands? Pencils? How much money had they exchanged? The animals he loved? Babies? I barely remember the last time he touched me. I wish I had it on video, I could know for sure, and replay it. He walked my mother and me down the isle with those hands. He carried me when I was hurt. He threw them up in the air so many times when he was frustrated or angry. Many steering wheels he had turned, and socks put on. Cans of soda, and guns. There is a letter I wrote the week he died, I put it there where his hand touches it where it lays in the coffin. He knows what it says without reading it. I believe he has always known. I never truly told him though what it says. I always meant to. I couldn't let go of his hands, the day he died. He was gone, already. Hands were still soft, and warm enough for me to think he was still asleep. Those hands that had held me so many times. I still feel like I need them to guide me. I hate not knowing what to do without him. Knowing what he would do, but I can not. I hate knowing he wont touch anything again in this life. That his last fingerprints still linger on things. That it will be years till I see him again. Till I hold those hands again.