Today is the anniversary of my mother's birth and so I wanted to include a few unique pictures of my mother's hands and the hands of my father and sisters. Several years ago my niece wanted to take pictures of Mother's hands. She was doing a project for her Young Women in Excellence award. I can't remember if I took the pictures or if she did or maybe one of my girls took the pictures but they turned out beautiful. Mother's hands were truly worn out in service for everyone around her. It was common knowledge in our home that Mother could not make a meal without cutting or burning her hands. We always had a beautiful clean home and I watched my mother serve others religiously.
As a young girl I would sit next to her in church and keep myself entertained for quite a while playing with her hands. The skin was loose and I could make it stand up and keep it's shape in peaks as I would pinch and pull it. Mother also had arthritis and her knuckles were swollen and painful but the area of her finger that wore her wedding band was still long and thin. I could tell that her hands had been beautiful in her youth. Mother never liked her hands but I loved them. I knew her hands were the way they were because she loved me too. Only a short time after taking the pictures of her hands my mother passed away very unexpectedly during a surgery. My sisters, father and myself were taken in to see her after her death. All I wanted to see were her hands. She didn't look like herself but her hands were unmistakable.
Before her surgery she had to take off her wedding ring. She really didn't want to remove it but she handed it to me and I placed it on my pinkie finger as it was the only place it fit. Just before we buried our mother my father lovingly place the ring back on her finger. I'm not sure when I took the rest of these pictures, I just know that I took them. The picture of my mother's hand was so precious to me that I also wanted pictures of my father's and sister's hands. I now have them framed with captions displayed in my home. I love my family and I am honored to be an eternal member of it. ( I had not noticed it before but my father's hands form an upside down heart.)
Today is the anniversary of my mother's birth and so I wanted to include a few unique pictures of my mother's hands and the hands of my father and sisters. Several years ago my niece wanted to take pictures of Mother's hands. She was doing a project for her Young Women in Excellence award. I can't remember if I took the pictures or if she did or maybe one of my girls took the pictures but they turned out beautiful. Mother's hands were truly worn out in service for everyone around her. It was common knowledge in our home that Mother could not make a meal without cutting or burning her hands. We always had a beautiful clean home and I watched my mother serve others religiously. 
