Hand Holding
The picture of Kathy Crisp at Charleston
‘So why hands?’ one of the participants in the Monday morning writing group at Charleston asks me.
‘It is what I am drawn to, what people do with their hands, and of what we hold in our hands.’
I think of my grandson and of his small hand in mine, as I listen to his breathing change, to the drop, and the sound of his snuffling grow louder, and the room quieter. His skin soft to touch, new.
When my sister and I were children we had piano lessons, and for a short time I learnt to play the clarinet. We wrote letters, a lot of them. I painted, and I drew pictures of people, mostly of my Dad on the sofa, his legs crossed at the ankles, relaxing, and holding the newspaper after a busy day waiting for his tea to be ready. I took a few pictures on my camera of people, mostly women outside, walking along the streets, holding their bags of shopping, in side by side conversations in the town we lived in. But being creative, using our hands, was not encouraged, not as a long term career.
My mother played the piano and stopped sometime during my teenage years. She wrote letters, a lot of them; she made lists of everything, shopping, things to do; she wrote a lot with her manicured hands. As well as cleaning, dusting, wiping, hoovering, stacking, pegging out, ironing, gathering in. There was a time when she had her ‘nails done’ and then stopped. Instead she filed her own nails with a metal nail file that she kept in her handbag, a bag which she held close to her all of the time. It barely left her side, and was always within reach, or sight.
At the end of the day she used to use a cucumber hand lotion that came in a glass bottle which had a white label upon which there was a description in green writing. The lotion was translucent and smelt delicious. She smelt of cucumbers, and Chanel No. 5.
My mother never stopped tending to her nails. On her last day, on her death bed she asked me to file her nails with her metal nail file. I held her hand first one and then the other in mine, the soft skin translucent skin, and gently shaped her nails. I forget whether I was holding her hand as she slipped away, taking her last breath as I lay my head next to hers on her pillow. Her breathing, slowly lulling me into a soft sleep and then suddenly she was not there any more. It was my sister who said, Anni, I think she has gone. And she had.