"Her Hands" | A Poem for My Mother

Writing poetry can be a cathartic and cleansing experience. I wrote this poem about six months after my mother's death, spilling almost complete onto the paper, needing little revision afterward. This is, as you may guess, an intensely personal poem I have not shared with many people until now.

My mother has been gone for fifteen years now, and we just passed what would have been her 70th birthday.

Poem and photos copyright © 1990-2011 Carma Paden.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Do not copy without permission.

1965, my mom with my older sister and me.

My mother, Betty Jane Stewart, was a gracious Southern lady born in Memphis, Tennessee. She married a Texan and raised her children in Texas. She was horrified by the Texas hillbilly drawl coming from her children's mouths and would not let us get away with "whur" and "thar" instead of "where" and "there" - but she never lost her own sweet Tennessee accent.

She died in May 1996 when my only child was eight months old. She was 54 years old and the breast cancer of a few years before had metastasized to her liver. She was survived by her mother, her husband of thirty-four years, her three children, and five of her nine grandchildren (all three of my sister's children, one of my brother's two children, and one of my four children were already born). Her father and two brothers predeceased her.

My mother, Betty Jane Stewart.

This photo was taken after her breast cancer, but before it moved to her liver.

Her Hands

for my mother, addressed to my daughter

In your high chair you sit

beside me at the sink

watching my hands in and out of the soapy water

When suddenly I am not at the sink looking down

but beside it looking up

up at her hands in water like this

Hands that looked then as mine look now

long and a little bony

with veins that show ropy and blue

And through a sudden shine of tears

I cannot see my hands at all

or you

But only her hands

hands that will not hold mine again

hands that won't write my name again

Hands that lifted you only once

then waited for others to place you gently in her lap

then folded together empty forever

Your sweet fat hands my daughter

that look like starfish now

in silhouette against a nightlighted ceiling

Your hands like mine

will grow long and a little bony

will someday show blue ropy veins

And you will wonder peevishly

why your hands must grow to look like mine

as I once wondered why mine must grow like hers

You will not know that they are her hands

long departed

and that her hands caressed you through mine

Poem and photos copyright 1990-2011 Carma Paden.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Do not copy without permission.