Like the back of my hand.

 

I remember a moment - between me and my Grandmother (Avo Bain) - when I must have only been 5 or 6 years old.

 

We lived in Old Decatur -- I don't remember the street or exactly where the house was. It was East of 6th Avenue. It was one of two different places that we lived in that area before we moved to Truman Avenue and later on to Hamaker Street in Flint.

 

Grandma Bain was visiting with us for a while. She spent time with all of her children and grandchildren like that. She would pack a suitcase from her little house in Gardendale and she would go to Howard and Dean's and stay a while (not very far away). She would sometimes go and visit for a few days with her sisters. She would stay with Hack and Ovella, Bill and Marie, and she sometimes went all the way to Michigan to stay for a visit with JP and Carrie.

 

And she came to visit Walt and Libby Bain and their two boys.

 

Danny was still just a baby and had his own baby bed in Mom and Dad's room. Grandma and I shared my bed when she came to our house. I was so excited when she came and when I heard that she was coming I could hardly stand still.

 

One day - after she had been with us a few days - we were on the couch together -- in front of the TV. She was watching a program (I never remember her changing the channels, she just watched whatever was on). She was watching something - and every once in a while she would spit into a vegetable can that was lined with tissue. She enjoyed dipping snuff - and I never say her without her spit can.

I was stretched out as far as a 5 year old could stretch on the couch with her - my head resting in her lap.

 

She draped her arm over me and held my hand across my chest.

I remember clearly that I was not watching the TV program - I was studying the back of Grandma's hand.

 

I had never seen a hand like it - or maybe I had just never been this close before to an older person's hand. The skin on her hand was loose and wrinkled. You could move it around (I did), and pinch it up and it would stay pinched into a peak until she move her hand or fingers.

 

There were spots and moles and other anomalies - I examined them all. Rude behavior from anyone but a child, perhaps. Curiosity and being at ease for a little mind.

 

I don't know why - but that memory has stayed with me for over 60 years. I have never forgotten it. Isn't that strange?

 

And you know what? That memory has come to mean something entirely different to me in MY recent years.

 

I have Grandma hands! (Grandpa hands, I guess).

 

Have you ever said, "I know that like I know the back of my hand!"

 

Well, as of late, when I take time to look at the back of my own hands - they are unrecognizable to me.

 

I couldn't pick them out of a lineup of hands in a picture. I couldn't describe them to someone else so that THEY could pick them out.

 

They look like a stranger's hands. An OLD stranger.

 

I don't think that I can say any longer that I know ANYTHING like I know the back of my hand.

 

It's the same when I see myself in a photo, or a video, or in the mirror. I have become someone old and unrecognizable.

 

Well, such is life.

 

I have no more desire to get in shape, lose weight, color my hair, change hair styles, buy new clothes, or pursue surgery to restore my youth. I think I'm coming to terms with growing older. I don't think that I'll ever like it or be willing to accept it.

 

If God is gracious - I will get older - until I don't.

 

I know that for sure.

 

Just like I know the back of my hand.