My Grandmother's Hands

I looked at her hands with curiosity and dismay as she crocheted a tea cosy. They seemed so old and mortal.

"Gran, how did your hands get like that?"

"Like what?" she replied.

"Well, I can see right through them, all the veins and stuff. They are not like mine, all smooth and opaque. They look… old and a bit scary."

"Well there's nothing wrong with them and you should mind your own business," she snapped. "Just a bit of arthritis, that's all."

I really did want to know how hands like mine became hands like hers. Was it too much dishwashing, or cleaning, or getting sick, or living past fifty? When did the process start? Was it fast or slow? I wanted to know what could I do to avoid looking like that but clearly this adolescent was not going to be able to ask her.

Those hands had so much skill, patience, effort, persistence. If hands could see they'd have seen the change from horses to motor cars, washing coppers to washing machines, a Singer treadle sewing machine surpassed by Chinese imported clothing, an old valve radio to a colour television, a draper's to a clothing store. And those hands had helped me grow up.

They were never hands that patted me on the back, or hugged me. Instead their kindnesses were demonstrated in showing me how to cook, embroider, sew and knit and crochet. Gran's scones were miraculous. I never discovered the real secret to getting scones that light, that right, every time. She said she'd switched from butter and milk to using cream but when I tried that I ended up with rocks that didn't go well with jam.

Those hands knew how to boil mutton and make a parsley sauce so good even the French might have enjoyed it. Those festive Christmas puddings were assembled with pride and boiled to perfection with sixpences hidden inside for us to find. Chocolate instant pudding from a packet was whisked up and then smothered in whipped cream sprinkled with hundreds and thousands. We never worried about cholesterol or calories back then. The handmade jams and pickles and preserves were proudly displayed and used or given away.

When I was at Intermediate School I finally got the opportunity to teach Gran something. I couldn't believe it when she started making my pineapple-apple sausage meat rollup I'd learned in cooking class. She didn't say it was good. She simply asked me how it was made, wrote down the recipe and started making it. Silent praise indeed.

Gran's hands never stroked me when I was sick but they did bring me cups of tea of a taste I have never found anywhere since. They also played knuckle bones with me, over and over and over again, sitting on the carpet in front of the fireplace in the lounge. Those were the happiest times for me; away from the threats and sourness of my parents; it was a refuge of strict yet safe moments during holidays or sometimes Friday nights. When it wasn't knucklebones we were playing it was cards: Snap or Happy families or sometimes we used a real deck of cards to play Twenty-One. No-one to yell at me, manipulate me, hit me or demand I clean something. Just me and my Gran who shared time and conversation.

The carpet in front of the fire was also the place her hands taught me how to make crepe paper roses. I needed garlands of pink roses with green leaves linked with pink satin ribbon as decoration on my Les Sylphides-style ballet gown for a recital. We rolled the edges of the leaves and petals on the diagonal with one of her knitting needles. After some preliminary tries I was allowed to complete each rose so that Gran could sew them onto the pretty pink ribbon. It looked great.

It was Gran who cycled with me to my dance classes and shared the chocolate biscuits she'd wrapped up for us for the return ride at night. It was Gran who made up spelling and other word games to pass the time together and encourage my interest in English. Her school lunches were always devoured to the last crumb, especially her tomato sandwiches and fruit biscuits.

As the decades passed her hands stopped busying themselves with her handcrafts. She was going blind but never told me. Whenever I cycled from high school to her place I'd find her sitting in silence staring out the lounge window at the view down the street; looking for any visitors, watching cars go by. Her hands now fussed over each other as if they were twins seeking company, solace. For years she did this even though she couldn't see more than a hazy blur. She seemed a forlorn and tragic figure sitting alone for hours like that, especially after my Grandfather died. She could barely see her only great-granddaughter Laura whom I'd bring on a rare visit to see her, from the faraway city where I now lived. I treasure the two photos I have of the both of them: greatgrandmother and greatgranddaughter.

One day I found her gripping the doorway, obviously in great pain. Her hands could no longer keep pretending there was nothing wrong. They could no longer hide an illness that made her grab a handkerchief to retch in every time she tried to eat something. She cried out. I was startled and very worried, but Gran hated anyone to pass comment on her, to fuss. She was of a generation that never wanted to lose face or dignity.

As I walked to the front door I turned to hug her to say goodbye. She clung to me. She clung like she had never clung before. Her hands were insistent and needy. She was giving me a hug or was it me hugging her? There seemed a long, strange, wordless exchange going on as I reminded her to have her regular medical check-ups and look after herself. After I got back to my accommodation I phoned my mother to tell her to check in on Gran and get help but she took no action for a good 24 hours. In the meantime, I flew home and settled back into my daily life feeling I should have been more assertive on Gran's behalf. A week later I learned that I would never see or feel those hands again.

I felt many regrets for not postponing my flight back to my little daughter and instead sorting things out for Gran myself but she had close family living in the same city who could have helped. She'd hidden her multiple cancers so well from those around her. Even her doctor hadn't realised the true nature of her suffering.

She's the best of my childhood and one of the most precious parts of my past. I think I gave her a link to the modern world she never seemed quite at ease with. Gran was always interested in my news. In return she gave me a link to an older world I wished I'd known. In a family where females were less regarded than males she gave me a haven where I could learn to be me in safety (so long as I didn't have my own opinions) and have one on one attention from someone who wanted to make that effort for no reason other than interest in me. What a gift. I still miss her.

And now my elderly hands are like her hands; transparent, veiny with age spots and with wrinkled arthritic bones. I doubt there will be a grandchild who will ask me how my hands got like that but I do know the answer.

Photos show: Gran and me around 1957, Gran knitting in the Old French Cemetery on L'Aube Hill, Akaroa, Gran with me at my baptism in 1955, Gran and Grandad in retirement, Me in one of my ballet costumes, Gran and Laura - last photos of her 1994 just months before her death.