BUSY HANDS TELL THIS STORY

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Hers were busy hands.

She was a woman who did more than she took credit for, gave all she had, then made more.

Joan needed busy hands.

A baker’s daughter, she learned lessons early; how to mix and cook and clean up afterwards was in her DNA.

Memories shot through a hospital room in a rainbow blur when someone asked, “Does she know what’s happening?”

Because she was raised in a small English village on the channel, she did what English girls of her generation did to meet the right man.

She made sweaters.

The comfort quilt at the foot of her bed was something she could make blindfolded.

Expert knitters make it look easy.

She made complex patterns look easy while watching TV and reading books.

Busy hands, busy mind, and so quiet and self contained. Unlike too many, she found peace with herself from the beginning.

Her calm face, eyes closed, rested on a pillow. Again the question, “Has anyone told her what’s happening?”

The English Navy put her busy hands to work.

She learned Morse Code, then flag signaling, to bring ships safely to harbor.

The world was her canvas when she pointed out on a map where she’d been.

Her fingers pointed to Peru and Mexico, to France and Greece, then to her regret in Africa for not making it there.

Instead, she decorated her home with African motifs in sculpture and fabric print. If she couldn’t go to Africa, she’d bring Africa at least a little closer.

That was her skill, bringing things closer. When her eyes failed and she couldn’t read, she signed up for books on tape. Then her vision improved enough in one eye to read again. A good story and cup of tea was her safe place no matter where she was.

For two husbands, children, and grandchildren, she carried life in her hands.

A strong grip squeezed her loved ones hands when they asked if she could hear them.

A nurse came to the door.

“We need to tell her. If you don’t want to, I will. She needs to know,” the nurse said.

The words came slowly, words like massive stroke, unsurvivable, comfort care.

“Do you understand?”

One squeeze from her busy hand said yes, then it lay quiet for ten minutes feeling the sorrow, the loss in a world she loved.

Unfinished paintings stood in her studio, open books with reading clips and notes inside the pages, a cup of tea and piece of toast on her counter top.

Her busy hand broke the mood the way her English sayings always did with, “Anyway, there you go,” and, “What else is there to do?”

With the only sound in the room her slow breathing. Her hand did the talking.

“We’re so sorry.”

Squeeze.

“We love you.”

Squeeze.

“We’ll never leave you.”

Two squeezes.

She knew.