BY KELLY SAVINO
J
ust short of 100 years ago in a
small Michigan town, while
the snow swirled outside the
hospital window, a newborn baby
girl opened her eyes and took her
first breath.
Her parents counted her fingers and
toes, and named her Helen. She was
bundled into a handmade quilt next
to a large soapstone which had been
warmed on a hearth, to keep her
comfortable for the long cold buggy
ride back to the farm.
A baby’s hands are elusive things,
floating mysteries that the small
brain slowly learns to use, piloting
thumb to mouth, gripping a rattle,
grasping a mother’s finger. But once
they begin to reach, they become our
tools for exploring — and changing
— the world.
My own mom grew up tended by
those hands, diapers changed,
hair brushed, dresses washed and
wrung and hung out to dry, ironed,
and buttoned. And still there were
cherries and apricots to pick and pit
and can, pies to bake, seeds to plant,
weeds to hoe, pickles to preserve.
And a farm woman’s hands weren’t
always doing the pretty chores.
Helen’s mother had taught her how
to swing a chicken by the head, pluck
When I remember being a child on
her farm, it is her hands I remember
the most. Wrinkled and freck