LIFE LINES

I looked at my hands today

To examine my life lines

Curious to know how meaningful my life is

I couldn’t decipher what this or that line meant

But what I came to realize was the story of my life

Depicted in my hands as a whole

Not just the coded lines on my palms

Studying my hands, the story unfolded

Barely aged, and hardly worn from labor

Yet scarred here and there with youthful recklessness

I looked over at the hands of my parents

There I saw a better story of my childhood

My father’s hands were large and rough

The knuckles slightly swollen and covered with hair

The palms patched with calluses

Much like the hands of my grandfather

Hard working men and battle-scarred war veterans

My grandfather’s index and middle finger of his right hand

Stained a dark yellow from countless years of smoking

Father’s just starting to darken,

He holds his cigarettes the same way

My mother has smaller hand, almost child size like mine

Our knuckles are hairless and smooth

Her fingers are bruised and swollen from all the blood sugar tests

Diabetes runs on both sides of my family

My mother’s hands are not that aged

Not like my grandmother’s whose hands

Pulse with thick purple veins

Covered in the wrinkles of her wisdom and age

Forever stained with the scent of onions and raw meat

My mother’s hands scented with a fainter chef’s scent

Lastly, I look upon my niece’s baby hands

Untouched by time

Hairless, wrinkle-less, and scarless

A sight of the pure perfection, of innocence

The life lines on her hands much longer

and more crisscrossed than mine

I take this as a good sign

I believe she will have a full and happy life

As I have had,

Thanks to the caring hands of my ancestors

Octavia Knight

Punxsutawney, PA

First published in The Watershed Journal