carson's hands

I remember the first time I met my cousin Carson. He had just emerged from the womb five days before, and still had that pinkish colored skin and eyes that didn’t know what to do. He was a squirmy little thing and every expression he made caused “ooh’s’ and “aah’s” from the female onlookers. He was pure and innocent in all of his small ways. What I noticed about Carson, though- more than his soft skin and loud cries- was the size of his baby hands. They were even more perfect than the hands of a porcelain doll, more gentle than a lover’s touch, and as plump as a little stack of sausages. They hung on his belly or at his side, fingers bending and being discovered, curiosity urging them to reach out into the unknown. When his delicate hand was placed in the palm of my own hand, it seemed hard to imagine mine being that size at one point, too. What kind of things will these hands do, I wondered. What kind of a man will grow into these hands? And then I looked at my own hands, 21 years grown. Certainly my hands had done things I never would have imagined even years before- but what were these hands created for? What are these hands meant to do?

Hands tell stories. Each crease is rich with memories- each bump, callous and scar a reminder of the past. Some, like Carson’s, are stories untold. Others’, like mine, are stories that have only just begun.