My Mother's Hands

I was looking at my mother's hands as she was doing her sewing yesterday and it took me back to my grandmother's. I remember sitting with Grandma and watching her as she sewed, played cards, cooked, or held a baby and remembering the transparent skin and the veins that showed through them. I remember holding that same hand as we would cross a street and thinking that it was soft and rough at the same time. I asked Grandma about this one day and she told me that it was because she worked hard, but tried to keep them soft with lotion. She said that some parts were easier to soften than others.
Both my Grandma and Mom were never strangers to hard work and I suppose this is what caused them to have the tougher hands. But I know that neither of them would have changed the life that they had. My mom seems very content to be what she is today and let others do the cooking and heavy cleaning for a change. She, as well as Grandma, would rather hold a baby than go shopping or visit with a bunch of strangers at some kind of club.
I look at my hands and know that someday they will look the same. I have never had to work as hard as mom or grandma, for I have more modern conveniences than they would have ever thought. But like mom, I much prefer holding my grandchildren to almost anything else in the world.