Things I Miss - Your Hands

Dear Babe,

Your hands didn't just hold my heart.

They were my favorite physical representation of you. Even now, I can still close my eyes and conjure up images of them. Still and then moving, clean but a little dirty. All of it. They were undeniably yours; just as loving and warm and expressive as you were. Both rough and smooth at once. Strong and capable, they provided endless stability and a straight line right to your heart.

Your fingers were long and perfect for entwining with mine. They were the perfect length for brushing the hair out of my eyes or wiping away an errant eyelash or tear. Your palms would sometimes be calloused from work but they never seemed to tug on my skin. Maybe I'm remembering things more sweetly in hindsight but I don't recall a time when I relished anything more than your touch.

I remember the rush of flutters the first time you held my hand.

I remember the calculation of how you held a dart in your hand. Fingers wrapped artfully around the metal; when you released, it was like watching a bullet meeting its target - fast but with purpose.

I remember the steadiness of your hand as you signed the papers that gave us our home.

I remember the dust and dirt and wounds that covered them when building our home into what it is now. Those hands brought the sleepy house out of the past and into our dreams for the future.

I remember the cool touch of your palms against my forehead when I was sick. Sometimes we would lay like that for hours; you outstretched across the bed, me curled into you, head in your with your hands against my head. You said your fingers would take the sick out of me and put it into you. Like a child I believed. Like a child your hands were all that could make me feel better.

I remember the juxtaposition of the cool of metal with the warmth of your soul as you placed the ring on my finger that meant I was promised to you (as if I could have been promised to anyone else - as if there was any greater promise than our love). You shook slightly and I was tickled that you could still be nervous after so long - after love and our cats and a house and our dreams.

I remember how you gripped my hand tightly at the end of the aisle as we said our vows. They were sweating and you wiped your thumb across the back of my own hand to transfer some of the dampness. I suppressed my laughter as I looked into your eyes and they begged me with a twinkle not to give you away. After we exchanged rings and had walked past our loved ones as husband and wife, you looked down at your hand trying to absorb the magnitude of what the metal meant.

I remember reaching out for your hand as I slumped to the floor after the thousandth negative pregnancy test. You always held me up; you never would let me bear the weight by myself. I imagined your hands touching my pregnant stomach. I imagined your hands cradling a crying newborn. I imagined your hands teaching our son how to dribble a basketball, how to swing a bat, how to shoot a dart. I still do. I wonder if I ever will stop.

I remember the feeling of your hand in mine when I woke up on the last day. I never liked to cuddle when sleeping - it made me feel suffocated - but I smiled to myself because you always found a way to sneak a snuggle in. The alarm went off but you kept sleeping and I gently bit the knuckle of your middle finger to wake you up. Your eyes flew open and you acted mad but then started tickling me until I couldn't breathe.

I remember my eyes catching on your hands in the hospital room, after you were gone. They weren't yours anymore. They weren't mine. Standing there, everything was the same - every scar, down to the very last hair. Identical. In that moment I could rattle off any simple fact about you - you always kept Juicy Fruit in your pocket, you knew the words to every Peter Cetera song, you would travel for hours for the perfect margarita - but I couldn't remember what your touch felt like. My first panic attack was when I feared I would never remember again.

One of the best things that has happened since I lost you was when I woke up remembering your hands and your warmth. It may sound silly, even trivial, in the myriad of things that made you my Tom that I could remember instead.. But I had to write it down. There was nothing more joyful than your tickles. There was nothing more romantic than those sweaty palms on June 16th. There was nothing stronger than our hands joined in unity. Because there was nothing safer than my heart being in your hands.

Love,

Amanda