Amanda Hare (5.28.06)

My Grandmother's Hands
- Amanda Hare

Why do people value pictures and family portraits so much? Is it to keep a shrine of reverence to the dearly departed? Or to keep the presence of a stern hand pushing down on the still living? Or is it just to keep fresh the image of someone who has passed on which we would otherwise forget?

Whatever the reason I'm glad I live in an age where photographs are a real thing and not just wishful thinking in some science fiction book.

Every day my grandmother smiles up at me from the family portrait that I missed because I had to work. Don't worry, I'm there thanks to my mother's skill with photoshop.

The woman in the picture is very much the one I remember. Her gray hair still shot through with streaks of blond and an intricate map of wrinkles laid over her face. She was strong enough to raise 10 children under the umbra of an alcoholic husband an d yet not lose her sense of generosity. Every person who walked through her door was welcomed and asked their fod allergies. It might be five years before she saw them again but she would remember who had an allergy to peanuts and who to brusselsprouts.

Most of all, Gramma was patient. She ran a tight ship but there was always time to stop and wait for the child who was slow at picking berries (me) or a kind word and gentle guidance when someone spilt an entire bowl of cake batter all over the floor (also me!).

There are only a few memories of my grandmother that are very clear. In each one her face is fuzzy although I clearly remember in one her eyes but most of all, her hands.

One morning when I was five, I woke up just after the sun and being five I jumped out of bed and went to see who else was awake. My grandmother was ambling around the room that served as kitchen, dining room, laundry room, entryway and in the winter, clothes drying space. Oh, and don't forget the old fashioned wood stove and the homemade barrel stove that served to heat the house.

My grandfather designed the house and most of my uncles chipped in to build it. Still today the trunk that was the main house support is in the kitchen of the same, but slightly remodelled, house where my cousins now live.

Gramma was a short woman, she got progressively smaller with age thanks to a calcium deficient diet from being poor, and at the age of five I almost came up to her shoulder. That morning I found she had already gone out to the woodpile and laid a bed of wood on last night's cold ashes. She was busy balling up newspaper and stuffing it in the stove.

Seeing me she called me over and said, "Do you want to learn how to light the stove?"

Now this was an exciting thing. By this time I had already learned the power of flame after almost setting the house on fire by playing with my mom's cigarette lighter behind the couch. Although the house didn't go up in flames the drapes certainly did and I still burn with embarassment at the thought of a firefighter's daughter burning down his home.

Hooking her foot around a stool so I could peer down into the stove, Gramma explained how she had put the wadded newspaper between the logs so the dry bark would catch.

Covering my hand in hers, she helped me hold the match to the side of the Eddylite box at just the right angle and strike. To this day I still light matches at that exact angle but cigarette lighters are beyond me.