This Wine Is For My Mother’s Hands

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Firelands Cabernet Franc

Lake Erie

Producer: Firelands Winery
Importer: n/a
Year: 2006
Price: $10.99

The best way I know to put me in my place is to slip my hand into my mother‘s hand. To compare our hands is to measure how far I have yet to go , how much I have left to learn. Her hands show years of doing things – writing letters in the dying tradition of pen and paper; calculating numbers for bills and budgets; washing dishes and clothes; carrying groceries and children; driving; praying; fixing; opening; soothing. My hands pale in comparison, a muted, minor version of her warmth. Our hands intertwine as if being first introduced, as we do with strangers at parties, or lunches, or after church. But her index finger covers my pulse, where metaphorically it has been all my life — a gentle reminder of why I am here, and how. In time, I remove my fingers from her grasp, but the connection remains, as it knows no other way to do, as I know it will forever.