He’s lying there struggling for breath—fighting staying, fighting going. Pain lives in his 89-year-old face: in the furrow of his brow, the stress lines etched around his eyes, the downturned curl of his thin lips. It’s in the restless way he shifts his body, searching for a comfort he can’t seem to find. The morphine doesn’t seem to help.
I reach for his hand. It’s in a tight fist, fighting, angry, frustrated. I carefully stretch out his fingers along mine so I can hold his hand, feel his hand, and connect with him one last time. He lets me.
His hand is so familiar. I’ve held it more times than I can count and in someways it feels like a part of me. His hands used to be strong, smooth, manly. Now they are arthritic, skinny, bony, deformed. But they’re warm and I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.
As I sit there holding his hand, I begin to cry. I will him to squeeze my hand, the way you hold a newborn’s hand hoping for a tiny squeeze in return, proof that they feel you, know you, love you.
He doesn’t squeeze. I tell myself it’s the morphine.
I trace one of his protruding blue veins, and I think about how I’ve loved his hands and how I’ve hated them. I study the hand I’m holding—the shape of it, the feel of it, the weight of everything it has done. And suddenly, memories rise—one after another.
This hand curled into a fist and punched me in the nose when I was five.
This hand held mine as I walked down the aisle.
This hand spanked me hard when I lost my coat in third grade.
This hand pulled off his glove and slid my freezing hand into it on the ski lift.
This hand wrapped duct tape from my wrist to my elbow to teach me not to suck my thumb
This hand gripped the emergency brake as he taught me to drive
This hand threw basketballs to me on the driveway so I could practice my jump shot.
This hand struck me over and over for failing fifth grade social studies.
This hand adjusted my grip on a tennis racket so my serve would be better.
This hand held my six-year-old brother’s hand in a fire—to teach him not to get too close.
And this hand wiped tears from my face after my boyfriend broke up with me.
These hands are attached to a man who truly loved me. A man who was flawed. A man who tried. A man who wanted the best for me. And a man who lifted me up—and also broke me.
I will miss him. Miss the good parts of him. The parts of him that were proud of me. The way his face lit up when I walked into the room. And the hand that held mine because I was his “Heidi-pooh.”
I hope he finds peace, and love, and forgiveness.
