My Mother's Hands by Conlee Ricketts

For me mothering is a non-stop, learn-as-I-go adventure with no one to call for help.  My mom died when she was 59.  I was 32 and it would be another six years before my daughter Skye was born.  I wish they had met.

I remember once sitting on my mom’s lap with my hands wrapped in hers—she looked down and said, “Oh God. These are my mother’s hands.”  I didn’t understand the tone of her voice at the time.  It was almost a mixture of matter-of-fact sorrow, resignation, and exhaustion.  Nearly forty year later I finally understood—completely—as I stood flipping a pancake and there she was--her hand—holding my spatula. 

My own reflection even surprises me these days.  Sometimes I will pass a window and I will have to do a double take because I think my mom is staring back at me.  It makes me laugh.

I am sad sometimes that my mom never got to meet my daughter, but I realize now that her hands have.  It’s my mother’s hands I see holding Skye’s hand, or face, or brushing her hair.  Folding her granddaughter’s clothes even; it makes me smile.

Mom died with typical regrets of not being a “better mother” no matter how much I would try to convince her otherwise.  She did crazy little things that made me feel special.  She sewed a box full of Barbie clothes, let me “run away” (to the basement), take apart my bed and put it on the floor, and leave my room a holy mess as long as I shut the door.  She also taught me to finger paint on the glass top table, to bake, and how to enjoy summers on the patio.

I’m sorry Mom, but you aren’t remembered for putting me through college, although you did, or for the arguments we had during high school, or for any of those harsh words we may have spoken to each other.  You will always be remembered as the woman who set up her own mother’s ancient sewing machine to make teeny tiny jackets, skirts, and dresses for my Barbie.  It is all these little things that happened in the course of the days that are my lasting memories of “motherhood”.

Sometimes I even have a dream with my mom in it, and I get to watch her with her granddaughter; her face looks like the mom I had when I was ten—before grey hair, before cancer, before regrets.

As I hold my daughter’s hand I know my mom is here—I see it in my hands.  She gets to be a part of Skye’s life by proxy.  My hair is now turning grey, and I make mistakes, and Skye’s room is a holy mess, but I try not to have regrets.  Thirty years from now, when my daughter notices her hands have started to look like mine, I pray she knows just as I have come to understand, that she has four generations of good hands holding her, guiding her, and loving her—always.


This article originally appeared on May 7, 2013 on The Brown Falcon and each year near Mother's Day it needs to be revisited by me, so here it is :-) 

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