Valentine’s 2023: Generational Love

A series dedicated to my grandmother Helen. An imperfect woman that taught deep definitions of love to me.

Her hands were my favorite home to visit– worn and full of something intangible, Mystery brimming from her fingertips; a residue of all she’d held. Her story was wrapped up not in words, but in wrinkled, worn, paper thin skin.

Hands that remembered, were there from the beginning, and could recount it all back to those who’d sit, look, and listen. I used to stroke her palms and fingertips, thinking of where they’d been, where my own hands held in hers would go… and when I’d have to go on without her. 

Someday, when my hands have carried much more than they do now, I’ll look down and listen– peering at my own parchment wrinkled and worn, filled with  stories . 

These hands knew what it was to love deeply and truly. .

Gentle enough for brand new skin and bone, 

Strong enough to endure the weight accompanying it—

Tending tiny soul sanctuaries that housed fresh, clean, spirit. 

Everyday occasions swept up in one astounding miracle,

yes, these hands had learned what it was to hold the whole world.

Palms open, fingers loose, learning the sacred balance of live and let live… 

Let child become person, be human, be individual. 

Let them see themselves in you and wonder what else could be true.

Let them explore definitions of self:

not the things we do,

but the way in which we do the things that must be done.

And in doing things with love, 

With tenderness, 

We portray the expression of kind eyes you may never see.  

A gentle touch always remembered,

A simple, straightforward, translation

Understood at first exchange. 

Tenderness in hard lines sketched across a face that’s

Known you since existence.

Wrinkles from laughter or from trying times?  

Fine threads woven into heart and flesh connections.

Hands that once held us now reach out for reciprocation. 

A great swallowing up of our poorly disguised trauma, 

Smoothed over with temporary fixes

We rummage out of comforting traditions.

Wounds delayed from healing as we find comfort

in their constant bleeding. 

The beauty of familiarity forces into perspective

A realization and acceptance: Love is pain.

Painfully worth the laying down of life in hopes that

New life will always find a way.

To be held and not know where you end and another begins…

Enveloped by the sweetness of love,

Intrigued by its force, and subdued by its power,

Desperate for a reconciliation of

All the words unspoken with these same lips. 

It takes courage to gaze into another’s eyes and

See yourself staring back, reflecting off the black in their pupils…

To feel as though you couldn’t be closer and realize

You still know yourself better. 

No easy thing to build a life together

Knowing you must love yourself just as deeply,

As ferociously,

As sweetly as you do another

So that love is nourished to create something new.

A new being,

A new way,

A new chapter in the story.

Your story was always yours, and it always will be. 

Written out sentence by sentence, page by page,

On skin now thin as parchment, worn like an old classic…

Where did love decide to pick up the pen and

Write what seemed best?

No one can really unravel the mystery of it all,

But we can sit and listen.

Enraptured by what was and what is to come–

Holding the impossible,

Holding love itself,

Holding each other’s hands.