If you would please, stop reading for just a moment and look at your hands.  If you didn’t know you, what could you tell by looking at them?  Are they wrinkle-free with unblemished skin and fingers that actually work?  Maybe they’re spotted with age, gnarled from years of suffering with arthritis or some other ailment.  Are there calluses brought about by manual labor?  Are they soft to the touch or coarse from decades of use?  Would they speak of your struggles or proclaim the relative ease of your life?

After much thought and consideration, I’ve decided the most intimate part of our body is our hands.  Think about it.  In pre-pandemic days, when you met someone for the first time, what did you do?  You shook hands.  In the first few moments of your relationship, whatever that relationship might become, you intentionally placed skin against skin.  As you prepared to part, did you do the same?  One last handshake to seal a budding friendship or business deal . . . or simply as a farewell?

When someone is in anguish, whether it be mental, physical, or emotional—or all of the above—we reach for them with our hands.  We pull them close and hold them there, trying to ease their pain and reassure them.  We reach for our children when they are young, holding their hand as a way to protect them from the world.  We reach for that special someone, gently touching them, caressing their skin or taking their hand in ours as a way of expressing our love and devotion.

For good or ill, our hands speak volumes.  They connect us to the world around us, and especially to those who are dear to us.  Maybe that’s why, when we sit beside the bed of someone we love as they are making their way from this world to the next, we reach for their hand.  And we sit and we hold that hand and we wait, physically connecting one last time to someone whose life is ending.  Perhaps that’s why you’ll often see pictures of two hands—one so gently holding the other—taken as someone quietly slips away.  It is a tribute to a life well lived . . . a life that has deeply touched another.

Pause for a moment and look at your hands.  Then close your eyes and picture those of your parents . . . your grandparents . . . your spouse . . . your children.  Those hands and the service they have rendered, the joy they have given, are the ultimate expressions of love—and when joined with our own in the moment of death, they become the ultimate expression of grief.

About the author:  Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926.  She has been employed at Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 40 years and currently serves as the manager there.  Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone, and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.

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