The Hands That Hold Mine

My wife’s hands are gnarled, bent and stiff, aged with arthritis.  They are soft as sifted flour and wear my gold ring and hold my hand while we go to sleep.  We are getting old, have grown most of the way together now, been married longer than we weren’t.  She lies across the studio asleep in our bed, those hands folded under her head unconscious of the thousands of times I have watched her sleep and been dearly moved at the meaning of her being mine.  Her hands tell a great story, they have clung to mine in love, in salvation and pain, in fear and joy and ecstasy, in prayer, in life beginning, and in life-ending.  They have held my hand crossing the street, climbing mountains, wadding jungle streams and planting trees.  They have held mine in the moments of love and utter hopelessness begging for hope—they held mine as I lay dying.  These gnarled hands, now so wrapped in pain, soft as still warm water, have given me the great joy of being the hands that hold mine.