When I was a little girl, I loved playing with my mother’s rings. I would beg her to take them off so I could place them on my stubby fingers and imagine what my own bejeweled hands would look like someday.

I remember the first time I noticed how different her hands were from mine. No longer smooth and vein-free, the skin of my mother’s hands contrasted starkly with the smooth, barely-lived-in skin that covered my own.

From the Mouths of Babes

“Look how old your hands are compared to mine!” I announced triumphantly, as though I’d discovered some previously unknown fact of human existence. And then, just to throw a bit of salt on the wound, I mused, “I wonder if my hands will look like yours when I’m old.”

Years later that conversation was repeated, only this time I was the mother, and my own daughter was announcing her own revelation.

“Mom, look how old your hands are compared to mine!”

And so goes the circle of life as mothers age and their daughters become mothers with daughters of their own.

Bittersweet Reflections

I’ve been reflecting on many of the conversations I had with my mother during our times together. In just a few weeks, the fifteenth anniversary of her death will be here, and today I think back to the final Mother’s Day I celebrated with her just a few weeks before she passed away from ovarian cancer.

By then her hands, like the rest of her, looked old and frail. As we sat together and held each other’s hands for what would be one of the last times, I marveled at the strength that poured from her. She had made peace with her impending death, and she wanted to know that I would be okay once she was gone.

As I look at my own aging hands, I remember how my mother’s felt that day; I can even remember how they felt decades earlier when she held the hands of that little girl who dreamed of someday being all grown up, and I wonder if she would be proud of the woman I am today.

I’d give anything to chat with her again..

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I miss you so much.

[Updated May 12, 2019]

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Candace Johnson is a professional freelance editor, proofreader, writer,  and writing coach who has worked with traditional publishers, self-published authors, and independent book packagers on nonfiction subjects ranging from memoirs to alternative medical treatments to self-help, and on fiction ranging from romance to paranormal. As an editorial specialist, Candace is passionate about offering her clients the opportunity to take their work to the next level. She believes in maintaining an author’s unique voice while helping him or her create and polish every sentence to make it the best it can be. Learn more here.

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