My Grandmother's Hands

When I fix on the small details of my grandmother’s hands and fingernails, I can see the rest of her immerge like a genie from a bottle. Those hands so facile and fluid, and yet so gnarled by the years of playing piano. Her nails were always painted a beautiful shade of red because for her that’s what women do. Her hands held my hands to make sure I was safe as we walked in the mall. Her hands guided a paintbrush, a spoon in the bowl, a sweeping of the table linens to be sure that it was all as it was supposed to be. Her hands brushed my doll’s wild hair, coaxing out curls and shaping the mass of hair into a beautiful design. Her hands wrote holiday cards, not like people do today with an “XOXO” but with long detailed stories and well-wishes, all carved out with her whimsical script. Her hands held babies and doggies and roses. Her hands generated beauty and taste and love.

Above it all, those hands created music – the most beautiful sounds you’ve ever heard came from those hands. Often playful and melodic and always spontaneous and easy. She never had a sheet of music, but those hands played every song you could imagine. How far her hands could stretch across the keyboard – across octaves and beyond. How quickly her hands could move – both hands carefully coordinated but each doing something quite different to create a sound that seemed to come from a full orchestra. How quietly her polished nails tapped on the keys as her fingers flew across this chord or that…these taps making their own syncopated rhythm like a little drummer in the background. Her hands winnowed a path straight to her soul. At the piano she was free and liberated – leaning back ever so slightly in the seat and watching over her shoulder to my grandfather. My grandfather, too, with his shiny bright saxophone giving her song cues which my grandmother received with a light contented smile on her gentle mouth.

She was at ease, in control in her music. She was the melody that carried the song and that’s exactly the role she played for all of us. Our family floated along with her melodies – the ups and downs falling like a rift across our lives. Her music was our holiday celebrations, our birthdays, our milestone moments. Always gathered in the den around her baby grand to hear something from the good old days. She marked time with her music – brought us together and healed our boo boos with her songs. She forever had a song to match whatever we were doing. “Small fry, small fry…” she would sing as we sat to eat our lunch. Her pain was soothed in her music – and eventually became the place to which she escaped when her own son died way too early for her soul to bear. She melted into the music until she couldn’t anymore.

And here my grandmother remains in my mind – seated at the piano with something fun to share. Some inside joke, some homage to spirit, some love song to play. Her hands poised above the keys asking me what I want to hear this time.