Her Hands

My Grandmother, Dorothy Hockett, was not my biological grandmother.  I don't know that she was any more than five feet tall, if that, but she was a powerhouse in my mind.  She was dynamic and educated and articulate and always well-groomed and...refined.  Yes, that's the word that often comes to mind when I think of her.  Refined.

I don't know as much about her life as I would like, but I know that she was a loving wife to my Granddad and a loving mother to her own son and my Granddad's three children.  I know that her life was not always easy.  For all intents and purposes, she is the woman my father thinks of as Mother in the true nurturer sense of the word.  She is my Grandmother.  Never Grandma -- oh no.  Not Nana or Grammy or anything like that.  Always Grandmother.  Always refined.

She was tiny and, in later years, frail.  I remember her hands...she had terrible arthritis and her fingers and knuckles were swollen and her hands often did not cooperate, her joints not always straightening all the way.  My Granddad did many tasks for her because her hands hurt.  He drove her places, helped her dress, did much of the cooking...he loved her dearly and he showed it in every interaction I ever observed between the two of them.

I have two examples of her handwriting.  One is in her Book of Mormon, given to her in the late 1940s by a family member.  I love that book.  It sits on my bedside table, the black leather cover fading and distintegrating a bit on the edges.  The pages are no longer pristine white.  But throughout that book are the verses she carefully marked with red pencil.  I know she used a ruler or straightedge of some kind.  The underlining is perfect, the lines straight and even.  There are verses she highlighted with that red marking pencil, sometimes with yellow marking pencil.  I love to read the verses she marked -- the verses that were significant and most meaningful to her.  But most of all, I love to read her hand-written annotations in the margins.  I can see the progression of her arthritis in those pages...in earlier days the handwriting is very clear, so proper, with each letter perfectly formed according to strict handwriting standards.  And then, towards the end of her years with that precious book, her handwriting is shaky, spidery, and sometimes hard to decipher.  But still she read.  And still she wrote.  And still she had faith.

The other example is a short note she wrote to me after Mark and I got engaged.  We went to visit Grandmother and Granddad on that same trip when we got engaged and our engagement was so new and shiny and exciting.  It was important to me that they meet Mark and that they like him.  After the trip, she wrote me a short note and in it she shared some thoughts and advice that I treasured and tried hard to follow.  I found out later that some of her advice was based on her own difficult experiences and that made the note even more precious.

There is one othe example of her handwriting I wish I still had.  One weekend when I was a student at BYU, I went to visit my grandparents and asked her to proofread a paper I was writing for a class.  She took her red pen and marked up my paper with great gusto.  I think she enjoyed the exercise.  She sent my Granddad to the local Kinko's to photocopy information on correct use of commas a semi-colons and spent at least two hours that weekend teaching me how and when to use them correctly.  At the time I was a little hurt that she had found so much wrong with my paper, although I was also grateful that she took time to review it and help me improve it.  I wish I had kept it.

She passed away in 1994, just a few short months after our daughter Alyssa was born.  She never got to meet Alyssa. 

My Grandmother's hands...painstakingly writing a note to a granddaughter embarking on a new phase of life.  Painstakingly reviewing a college paper and pointing out errors and providing corrections.  Painstakingly marking and annotate her scriptures.  Providing physical evidence of her love for me and her love of the scriptures.

Today I fear my hands are becoming arthritic like hers, soon to be swollen and not work the way I want them to.  In the last several weeks I can't remember a day that my knuckles didn't ache and swell...that playing the piano didn't cause some additional discomfort...that my knees didn't ache and swell, making it painful at times to walk up and down the stairs in our home, to change position after sitting for too long.  My elbows hurt.  And I can tell it is more than just little aches and pains.  Rheumatoid arthritis runs in my family and I was tested for it last year.  My levels were high but still in the normal range, barely.  The pain went away.  Now it is back.

I find myself during the day rubbing lotion into my aching hands and I remember watching my Grandmother do the same thing.  I remember watching her slowly and gently rub her hands, as if she could rub the pain away.  I do the same thing.  It is a subconcious thing -- I don't even realize I'm doing it until I catch myself.

In this current time of trial and tribulation in my life, I find myself thinking of her often and remembering how gracefully she bore the trials and tribulations of her own life -- at least from my vantage point.  I want my hands to be like hers....lovingly writing notes to family members...lovingly providing guidance and assistance...and lovingly reading and marking my scriptures and finding peace and inspiration in them.

Even all these years later, I still think of her often and wonder if she would be proud of me and how I have turned out.  I imagine she would tell me to keep my chin up and just keep pushing through.

That's what I'm trying to do.