While mending some hems for young missionaries, I happened to notice the pink plastic thimble on my right middle finger. For whatever reason, it caused me to actually look at my hand for the first time in a long while.

Generally, I’ve always liked my hands. Though not traditionally long and beautiful, I’ve often thought they were somewhat attractive, at times, even graceful. The tiny movements of the wrists and fingers while tatting; the larger emotive sweeps, beats, and tension of conducting a choir; the quick fluttering of fingers while typing or playing viola; or signing along to favorite songs, because ASL is such a lyrical language, though I am nowhere near fluent. Nothing is more expressive on the theatrical stage than thoughtfully placed hands.

The touch of my hands has been called gentle when I helped with an injury, loving by friends and family, helpful when dealing with pain, and soothing for heartaches.

Over the years I’ve used them to fire arrows, wield swords, or rapiers, though none very well. They’ve been blackened with ashes over cooking fires, turned blue, yellow, red, or orange with dyes, been stained with plants, garden dirt, sap, sawdust, and any number of other substances. Callouses from my instrument, years of spindle spinning, thousands upon thousands of pricks of pins and needles over the many years of textile work, along with a myriad of other tasks come and go. But they’ve also been soft and lovely with long, carefully manicured, painted nails that were grown for long weeks for special occasions.

Today they look…old. Or at least they are starting to. I suppose that is only fair, after a half a century of use.

They also tell a story, if examined closely. Let’s start with the right hand.

The thimble is to protect my longest finger while I work on pants for teenage missionaries. They asked for some hemming, so I stopped and did it.

The fingernail on my ring finger is cut close. For some unknown reason, stress affects that nail, making it brittle. The evidence of a migraine from over a month ago that lasted more than a week is still growing out.

A small burn on the back of the hand is from the hot iron used to make masks a few days ago. My daughter asked for some more for her coworkers.

My left hand is covered with small scratches that resemble paper cuts. They are from the rotary cutter I’m using to make squares for a postage stamp quilt from scraps as I relax in the evening, to keep busy as I help my husband work out details for his role playing game, or when I just can’t quite bring myself to do anything else. Some of the scraps are from friends, and some are from projects decades old that I have been keeping just for this.

Other scratches are curved and slightly deeper from tending to my sick pet. Little Judy, a black and white rat, does not like her medicine.

The reddened patch on my forefinger is from diabetic testing.

Most of the nails are too long at the moment to play my viola, which I haven’t for years. It makes me feel guilty sometimes. But they are a good length for picking up needles, working on the Cross Stitch of Doom (which I hope to complete sometime within the decade), and manipulate thread.

The rope burns on the back of the hand are nearly healed, finally. I helped make a net for a trebuchet for a medieval society a few months back.

And then there is my wedding ring, the most notable thing on my left hand. It is a simple affair – two millimeters wide, made of white gold with no adornment. We chose it because it was a harmonious mix of two metals in an eternal round. I’ve worn it for so long, it is part of my anatomy. No one else can remove it but me. (My children tried.) When moved from its place, the groove left on my finger is so deep, people comment that it still looks like I’m still wearing my ring. I often fiddle with it, but seldom take it off.

As I examined my hands, for a moment I mourned, wishing for the return of the time of their young skin and pretty nails. But then, I realized I would rather have hands told a story of a woman that worked, that tried things, that learned. A woman that lived.