Mom, dad, brother, and I -- we all have two hands. My own hands are like expansive canvases, smudged with pencil, stained with paint, and smeared with plaster. Yet my brother, his hands are small. Nails sent to their beds and bits of earth burrowed into the blankets of tanned skin. The smell of carp clings to their sweaty surface. Mother’s fingers are spring-time stems, sweet, rosy buds at the end of each one. A treasure trove hides in her hand’s garden, twinkling, talking of love, even on the worst days.
      

But my father’s hands, my father’s hands are sandpaper and spray paint. They’re my only tool kit: digits like a crescent wrench and muscles like a crosscut saw-- all with the ease of a crowbar. Not pretty, no beauty contest winner-- bloodied, black, and cracked, with nails sent to bed like my brother’s. But they are strong, they are so strong -- strong enough to nuzzle his newborns, strong enough to melt my mother, strong enough to pilot a plane. And, on my first day his cracked bear paws encased my mittens, and on my last day his dirtied digits will dry the tears. They are the hands that hold mine, they are the hands that say goodbye, they are the hands that I adore.