by Lisa Moeller

Created on: September 01, 2009

My Little Man's Hands

Your hands were clenched when you entered the world. Hot pink, with little indentations where your knuckles would be. Over time and in response to a growing sense of safety and contentment with your world on the outside, those tiny little hands with paper-thin nails that I trimmed with my teeth began to loosen their grip on fear, relaxing in the security of constant care. Beautiful, smooth, flawless skin stretched over your primary tools that in time, would extend and grasp the objects of your desire: a bottle full of juice, a lovey (whose ears you stroked until you slept), and, much to her chagrin, the jowls of your dog.

Of all the the incredible emotion you stirred in memore than your eyes, your smile, your fat, chubby thighsyour hands moved me the most and forever will.

It is with those hands that you came to experience much of your early life. Those hands brought all manner of things to your eyes for examination and to your mouth for exploration. You used those hands to propel yourself from one place to another, to pull yourself up onto your feet, to climb to new heights. They gripped both of my ears to pull me in for your first, slobbery kisses.

To your utter delight, those hands splashed the sparkly water in the pool you swam naked in outside in the bright spring sun. They felt the texture of beach sand and squished through your first birthday cake. They pounded on the window to get Daddy's attention outside and shook your crib when you wanted out. They painted one-of-a-kind finger-paint portraits and stacked more blocks than I can count.

You found a new love in Hot Wheels, zooming them across the hardwood floor and playing crash with me. You created your own music on a Xylophone and turned the pages of your books, read to you uncountable times in the hope you would embrace a love of reading (you didn't). Daddy taught you to hammer nails and climb ladders and trees. You came closer and closer to coloring within the lines. When you began to take for granted the simple act of walking and running, you wrapped those hands around the handlebars of your tricycle, then your bike, and that's when your hands braced your falls.

I watched you walk away from me, using those hands to carry your lunchbox to school. I absorbed the memory of those hands learning how to hold a pencil with a chewed eraser tip and I prayed you would do well. You developed the nasty habit of chewing your nails to the quick, probably while trying to solve a mathematical

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