Bigger Picture Moments & 5 for 5: Age

 
We sat around the island in my mom's kitchen, four generations of women forming a circle with our hands.  Because as much as pictures speak a thousand words, hands are like a glimpse into the past and this photo of four generations of hands tells more of a story than any our smiling faces would.

My grandma's one hand has only four fingers, a birth defect that has never bothered or slowed her down.  It's a hand I would know anywhere.  Every wrinkle in her hand is like a memory woven into her skin, of years gone by, ages well lived.  Hers is a hand that has held the hand of her lover as she whispered goodbye on his last day.  Hers is a hand that has welcomed generations of children and grandchildren and great grandchildren in warm embraces and words of affirmation and love captured on paper. 

My mom's hands show the lines of a woman who has raised five children and welcomed two grandchildren with open arms.  Hers are the hands of a wife who has loved her husband even through the hard years of rearing young ones and a daughter who has cared for her aging parents with such tenderness and love.  Hers are hands that planned and organized and held us all together in the good times and in the bad times. 

My hands are just beginning to show age, smooth lines slowly becoming wrinkles as my story unfolds.  These are the hands of a young mom, deep in the midst of nurturing young hearts and souls.  They are hands wrapped around her husband, safe in his embrace after a long, trying day.  They are hands that clean messes left by toddlers learning to be independent and explore their world.  They are hands gently drying a little one's tears and holding them close, wishing time would slow down, that age would not catch up with these moments.

And then there are the hands of my daughter, in that in between stage of baby and toddler.  Hers are hands that make sense of this big world around her through touch and feeling.  Her hands reach for her mommy, still so dependent on her security and understanding of all the things she has yet to learn.  Her hands clumsily grasp a little spoon, trying over and over to learn the simple task of putting the food on her plate into her mouth.  Hers are hands that haven't yet seen age stretch and scratch and bruise.

Each hand tells a story, but each story is interwoven into one of generations of women following in the footsteps of the one who has gone before.  Our hands formed a circle, uniting the years and times and ages into one beautiful story of life and love and the timelessness of age.