Beautiful hands ....

Five years ago today the most wonderful person left my life. My mother passed away from colon cancer. After 8 weeks in the hospital from a ruptured colon due to an unknown cancer, we were told to take her home. They gave her only 2 weeks so I took a leave of absence from work and went home to take care of her. The day she came home was my parent's 45th wedding anniversary. She only lived one more week and she passed on a beautiful Sunday morning much like today; cold and full of sunshine.

I sat up the whole night with her; giving her morphine every 2 hours as instructed by the nurse who brought it and then left after giving me the instruction to call her when she passed. To this day I don't think I will ever have a tougher yet more honorable job. My mother was there with me as she brought me into this world and I was there to help her leave. The picture above is one I had taken just the day before she passed. I just wanted something to hang onto. After my daughter had seen this photo she had the following poem framed for me by Emma M.K. Gates. It is rather long but so fitting.

Beautiful Hands

Such beautiful, beautiful hands,

they're neither white nor small.

And you, I know, would scarcely think

that they were fair at all.

I've looked on hands whose form and hue

a sculptor's dream might be,

Yet are these aged, wrinkled hands

most beautiful to me.

Such beautiful, beautiful hands!

though heart were weary and sad

these patient hands kept toiling on

that the children might be glad.

I almost weep when looking back

to childhood's distant day.

I think how these hands rested not

when mine were at their play.

Such beautiful, beautiful hands!

They're growing feeble now,

and time and pain have left their mark

on hand, and heart and brow.

Alas! Alas! the nearing time-

and the sad, sad day to me,

when 'neath the daisies, out of sight,

these hands must folded be.

But, oh! beyond the shadowy lands

where all is bright and fair,

I know full well these dear old hands

will palms of victor bear:

when crystal streams, through endless years

flow over golden sands,

and where the old are young again

I'll clasp my mother's hands.

I miss having her here to share the good and the bad times with. I just plain and simply miss her.

~Kim