Writing Challenge: Sept 5, 2018
Prompt: Write about the hands of someone you love.
She’s always worn several rings, at least she has for as long as I can remember. There was her wedding band: small diamonds set in gold, and her child-rings featuring a gemstone representing each month one of us grandchildren were born. There is her amethyst rings- for her own birth month, and a ring another ring featuring both the violet stone and an aquamarine for Grandpa: symbolizing their life-time commitment and partnership.
All these rings rest on fingers that are no longer young, but still nimble enough to sew, cross stitch, knit, and crochet. Her busy hands still decorate a family home for every season and every Holiday: Valentine’s Day, Easter, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall.
Atop her many rings on busy fingers sit carefully shaped nails. No longer as long, strong, and smooth as they were in her youth- they are as carefully maintained and cleaned as rings. They chip and break as she cooks for her family, carry bowls and dishes to share at church, and pull the weeds that threaten her rose bushes. Still as time adds freckles to her once pale hands, and her knuckles knot from the strain of decades of hard work, those careful nails shaped in imitation of time long-since passed.
Bringing Mae Flowers 