My Grandmother's Hands

My grandmother's hands are small and covered in thin skin like tissue paper, with knuckles that have gotten bigger over the years. They are the most capable hands I know.

They have kneaded bread every week for sixty years. They have sewn Halloween costumes for three generations, braided hair, pruned roses, dealt a thousand hands of cards and patted a thousand backs. When I was a kid and couldn't sleep, they rubbed my back in little circles until I drifted off.

Last weekend she taught my daughter to knit. I watched those old hands guiding my daughter's small ones, looping the yarn, slow and patient. "Under, around, through, off," she said, again and again.

My daughter made a crooked purple square. My grandmother praised it like it was a masterpiece. I watched their four hands together on the yarn and felt the whole history of my family in that one room.