I am visiting my mom this weekend. She is slowly passing. Her memory and body slipping away. She knows it but generally accepts her lot in life with goodness. We have reached the stage where I try and tell her my truest truths; she was a great mom, she did a great job, her parenting regrets are not a part of my heart or mind, she often saved me, and assuredly her prayers did, her faith was always an inspiration for me to aspire to. I have also started to look at her closely, to see her probably for the first time last, to really examine how she looks. She is much smaller than she was, still gentle and quick to smile but now a member of those Ancient Ones, those we know last before we are those. Yesterday I took a picture of her hands; I found them beautiful in their shared history with me. They are good hands, servant hands, working and holding hands, hands that have lived. For the first time, I really looked at them and saw for once, her hands as love. I examined them, touching them and really feeling them as she sat kindly by not alarmed or seeing this as odd, (only a very old person will do this). Her hands are remarkably soft, much softer than mine. I imagine as she has become an Ancient One her working hands have transformed into still hands and in the process have become amazingly soft. Work has long since been laid aside as she now waits; waits for her last journey to heaven, where I am sure; soft hands are essential.
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