A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: First Person

My Grandma's Hands
by Nancy Meloche
May 17, 2007

Hands have always fascinated me. When I was a child I would look at my beloved Grandma's hands with genuine interest. Iliked how she used them to express herself and how they deftly rolled out pie dough and how she would use her index finger to follow along as she read her bible as she moved her lips silently as she read.

The wrinkles and the skin so thin that her blue veins would seem excessively large. I loved to watch those hands as they delicately moved across the piano keyboard as she played and sung her favorite hymns. I would watch her as she dug in her flower garden and without gloves,tamp down the dirt around a new little plant.

By my request, she would bring out her scrapbooks full of family pictures and articles and pressed flowers and leaves from earlier times. She would point to someone and tell a story always so expressive with her hands. Not well manicured hands necessarily but so strong and also so gentle.

I would watch her crochet hook-rugs made out of old nylon stockings or afghans so beautifully done. She patiently taught me how to make pot holders but my hands were not as nimble as hers and the finished product was not much to look at. My final memory of my wonderful Grandma was a few days before she left for her final reward. She was lying on her couch resting her head on a large pillow and covered with one of her afghans. She was wordlessly, holding her hands out in front of her. I watched as she turned them from back to front several times, perhaps remembering a life well lived and the many ways that those hands served her and others.

About the author:
My husband and I have been married for 51 years. We have four grown children and nine grandchildren. I am writing my first novel that will never be published but which I am enjoying for the challenge.