I have been thinking about hands a lot lately. At school/work most of us have been displaced, so we are far away from those we know well, have relied on, and looked upon with regard. One such person is a young (compared to me) male teacher who is just that in the finest senses of the word. He is so skilled in his chosen profession that each Fall I worry that he will find someplace else worthy of the benefit of his talents. So far we've been fortunate, and he remains. I am not so lucky; this year he is geographically, at least, far from the halls I trod. [Before I go much further with this line of thought, let me say that I have been meaning to write this post for a while now, but work is so demanding, I have not managed it!] Coming off the elevator the other day, I was surprised and happy to see him and I held at my hand to him amidst the throng of students entering or leaving the cafeteria. To my surprise, instead of taking my hand, his arm slipped under mine in a quick half-embrace. There was a great deal conveyed in that fluid movement of his body as well as his intent, but I remind you that it started with the extension of a hand.
My hand, in its way, called that embrace into being. When Chris died on a Saturday, I had no desire to be in school on Monday. It was focusing on two young colleagues in particular that allowed my feet to bring me there at all. This was so true that I wanted to say something to them both about how knowing they would be there--- in that space--- enabled me to be there , too. When I saw him that day, I asked him to come see me when he had the chance. When he did, my index finger motioned to him to "come here" .... he is so tall, that I think he thought I meant for him to lean in for a whispered message, but really, my hand was calling him into what turned into an embrace. Our relationship had been more than friendly up to that point. We both had a very healthy and often vocal mutual respect for each other, but it had not been so intimate as to share tears or explanations about sources of grief until my hand called him into that hug.
As I said, I have been thinking about hands of late. With me, this is all a line of thought needs. It becomes a repeated motif. In reading letters from me written in the early '80's found at Chris' apartment, I was reminded that we often sat and talked while holding hands. A strange thing in today's world as an expression or extension between friends, but the letters reminded me that that was how we behaved... always somewhat off the charts. At the memorial service, I slipped my arm under Peter's and around his back and somehow his other hand found mine behind his back with lightening speed as if to say "I am here" with a tight and lasting squeeze. When I am well and truly rattled, I have been known to ask for his imagined hand in a letter or in an instant message conversation and there was no more perfect gesture of comfort to be made that day.
So... as I said, I have been thinking of hands. Last weekend, I went to get gas at my usual station, rolled down the window and the attendant's face literally LIT up. "My Friend!" he exclaimed as he clasped my hand in greeting--- and truly his face expressed both joy and surprise as he told me he had been thinking about me. Actually, it was more than that. We exchanged a few sentences, but I saw the remnants of worry disappear from his face, and that coupled with the gravity of the words he chose to say, I was given the unmistakable sense that he actually thought I had waved the last goodbye, so to speak. When I had paid him, and when it was time to leave, he took my hand again, this time in a clasp between both of his for a sustained exchange, and again told me how happy he was to see me again, and again, he called me his friend. His sincerity was all in the gesture of the sandwiched hand clasp, as well as the expression in his eyes and his stunned-to-see-me smile. [Later in the day I realized that it was the change in routine that must have started him thinking the worst. School was out for the summer and my daily commute spans hundreds of miles a week while my gas tank is quite small. I must have just been missing his shifts with my leisurely schedule.]
Hands. Chris' sister, in a thoroughly loving and unexpected gesture, gave me a good portion of his ashes. The vicar made an appointment with me. She put him in my hands. In a clear plastic bag. In a clear plastic bag placed in a wooden box and then in a small boutique shopping bag she had in her office, I carried him home --- a ridiculous reality for my larger-than-life friend. Almost immediately upon arrival, I had the courage to take the box from bag and the bag from box to hold and behold. It was a shock to me that I loved holding him/them. I loved looking at them and even feeling the texture of the ashes through the plastic. I loved, especially, the larger pieces of ash, for lack of a better word. When I tried to explain this to one of my very dearest friends, she said she knew that exact feeling from when she held her mother's ashes. [Thank God she said that , because it made me feel considerably less insane.] To another friend I was able to explain that it was those more palpable ashes that were most like him to me....they were more substance than sand, after all, and my friend and our friendship... well, they were the very definition of substance.
Long before I went to the vicar, I knew I would need a place for the ashes. Brian had asked me, I think the night I got back from the church, where the ashes were and I had to say on my breakfront next to my china, which made him laugh. I defended myself with "he loved my china," but I knew I wanted to return the box to the vicar and I needed a permanent place for them and it would have to be wood. I knew that much. I looked at hand carved inlaid boxes. I looked at Victorian letter boxes (seemed fitting). I looked at antique tea caddies. I looked at hand-turned urns. Everything was out of my price range and didn't seem right. In frustration, I asked his sister for the source of the box that held him in the columbarium. She sent the link, but on the page were two. My normally top-notch recall had now been destroyed by grief, and I couldn't remember which it had been. It would have been a simple thing to ask her. Instead I searched some more. And lo and behold, I found the perfect box.
It was described as a "Black Forest trinket box on four ball feet, carved on all sides, top with a center cartouche, featuring fine reticulate carving, ... leaves, original lock, inside lined with blue velvet, dating to around 1880, measuring 5 ½” by 3 ½” and standing 2 1/2” high." This is a very good description as descriptions go, but it was the photographs that sold me. [Dealer's original photo above, by the way.] The leaves were almost certainly ivy; a favorite of his and a symbol of love, memory, remembrance, fidelity, friendship and affection as well as constancy. The center cameo was just lovely, and I could imagine looking at it for hours, marveling at just how human hands had made it. Wasn't it Michelangelo who said that David was in the stone, just waiting to be chipped into being? What would the woodcarver say of his creation?
I sent for the box. When I told Peter about it, I looked more closely at the correspondence with the dealer and smiled to find her name was Gerda. Gerda was from one of my favorite childhood fairy tales. Gerda, who is friend to Kay ; “not brother and sister, but are just as fond of each other as if they had been.” When Kay catches a sliver of a magic mirror in his eye, he sees everything in the world as evil and twisted and becomes so fascinated by the beauty of the Snow Queen that he goes with her to her palace in the far frozen north. Gerda searches the world over to find her friend, and is set on several adventures along the way. With the help of a well-meaning crow, a rowdy robber girl, a wise reindeer, and an old woman , she makes her way to the Snow Queen's Palace where she rescues him. It was my favorite long ago, and I anxiously awaited the arrival of my parcel from this modern-day Gerda in Vienna.
It arrived last Saturday. Unwrapped, I both wept and pronounced it more perfect and beautiful in person than the photos depicted. When I began to describe it to friends, it quickly changed from 'box' to 'casket.' In fact, that is exactly what it looks like. A tiny, perfectly wrought casket. Picture the lovingly carved casket from a fairytale. Picture the brokenhearted dwarfs making the resting place for Snow White deep in the forest. Picture not glass, but wood. Now make the casket masculine and capable of being held in your hand.
And that is what I think of lately. Hands held out in greeting that allow embrace. Hands that hold a pen to paper. Hands that open. Hands that close. The hands that wrought this tiny miracle. And my hand that holds it when things are very still. Hands that comfort. Hands that console. Hands that carve out beauty from what is available to them.
