My Little Christmas Grandma
#six
I remember her hands the most
Like an orange
Rough and peeling
Veins sweet with energy and steadfastness
She could thread a needle with her eyes closed
and whip up a dress for a grandchild in a day
Bobbins my dad carved, shifted under her
svelte fingers as she created lace
as intricate as a spiderweb, only an artist
could see
Sometimes her old house smelled of
cookies and pine
But mostly
it was nicotine that clung heavy
to her oil paintings on the storied walls
With a paintbrush in one hand and a cup of coffee
in the other
She meticulously swept color over recycled canvases
in wood frames her husband made decades before
recreating the beauty that she had wished to see,
then living in it,
through the hope that painting brings
In times past, after celebrating the holidays
with dressed-up family and excited children,
her favorite day arrived —
Little Christmas
I wish I had asked her more
And on that day, today, many years ago
she returned home to her own mother
who she hadn’t seen in nearly 80 years
A life lived without dresses made
to fit her own blossoming form
or comforting shade to rest in
My mom has the same-shaped pinky finger
as she did
and as I do
I remember her hands the most
at rest now
in the hands of her mother
— KALM 🕯
