Those Hands

As I have become older, I try to make mental notes of things. Things I feel in my soul I need to remember. My dads hands. They have always impressed me…so strong. They could open any jar, fix any home project, build any fence, they could do anything and everything. This trip this week was about my dad…and why I was so upset that so many things went wrong.

It is not easy watching your parents age…and know that there is nothing you can do about it. How the roles reverse. You the daughter, now watching the father, to make sure he gets where he needs to go.

Asking him questions that he can no longer answer…and then the next minute he answers something that you yourself didn’t even remember the answer to.

My dad built two of our houses that we lived in growing up. He worked for over 40 years at General Mills. He worked hard so my sister and I could go to a private school and live in a nice house. He worked seven days a week, came home and worked on the house he was building. He then would build fences for horses and bale hay..those hands…they could do anything.

This past week everything that you can imagine to go wrong on a camping trip…went wrong. Flat tires and a broken water line, one of the mirrors on the truck literally flew off as we went down the road. The fishing poles broke (five out of five gave up the ghost) we bought new…no worries.

I’m not sure the last time you went somewhere with someone in their 80s….but there is a lot of repeating, lots of talking loudly…and early bedtimes.

However, I stood by the side of the river at a very early hour…and have some memories of them at their very favorite place that I now have as a memory…embedded in my mind…where I first saw my husband relax…and not think of work…

My daughter learned how to change a tire…

She also learned how to cast….did better than me I might add…

She watched her grandparents do something they loved….

She listened to repeated stories….and laughed as the smoke alarm went off in the camper while cooking….(because of course it did) she listened to her grandparents tell her parents a million times that we were going the wrong way…and she will forever giggle as she remembers how we got in our camping spot.

I will remember watching my husband and daughter help my dad do things he always has done…like clean fish…and fish. I will always remember those hands…and how he only loves his coffee one way…completely black…nothing added at all. I will always remember my husband and my dad chasing the spare tire down a hill and it going forever…(oh yes…that’s another story).

I will remember dad eating ice cream because that’s his favorite thing in the whole world…and I will remember how my daughter cooked for them and both my parents just loved it.

I hope my daughter saw the love her parents have for each other.