MY FATHER’S HANDS

My father’s hands
held me as a babe, cleaned and fed me
hugged me close, picked thorns from my feet
and combed my hair.

My father’s hands
worked hard to earn a living
provided food, clothes, and shelter,
vacations, trips, doctors, braces, glasses, fillings,
and kept working to provide more.

My father’s hands
young when I was small
now grown older, wrinkled, spotted and thinner skin.
These hands I remember throughout the years.

I have grown older and to my surprise,
I looked down one day and saw from my sleeves
familiar hands.
As I looked, they appeared to be
the hands of my father which I knew as a child.
The same thick fingers, wrinkles and creases,
cuts and bruises; hard working hands.
I grew up and one day I awoke
realizing I have my father’s hands;
what an honor, what a challenge.