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 She
was bewildered. Bewildered and ashamed. The other hands in the classroom
were smooth with nails cleanly cut. Hands raised to answer the teacher's
question. Hands engaged in the age-old art of spit-ball forming. Hands
writing on the blackboard. They all seemed so...new, so unused, so beautiful.
May hid her hands. In kindergarten she hid them under the table. In
first grade she hid them under the desk. In second grade, third grade,
and even fourth grade she hid her hands in this way. Winters were always
easier, thanks to grandma's homemade mittens. Colorful and bold, decorated
with baby ducks and, later, with purple and blue stripes, she felt no
shame walking to school carrying books and lunch for herself and her
sister.
Exclamations like, "Oh, how beautiful," and "I wish my
grandma would make some mittens with stripes," stirred up hope
inside May, and for a brief moment she would tell herself she was one
of them, for they would forget her hands and remember, instead, her
beautiful mittens.
Back in the classroom, May would catch someone looking in her direction
and shove her hands back under the desk. She never raised her hand,
never applauded with excitement. She wrote in hurried strokes of the
pencil so as not to have her hands in full view for very long.
One day she was walking through the school hallway, with her hands shoved
into her pants pockets. In the hallway that day, she saw a poster for
an art class. It was a special art class, it was going to be taught
by her favorite teacher, and each student was going to be able to learn
how to draw and paint. She signed her name on the poster and all the
way home, she thought about what kind of art project she might make.
Her mom worked all night long while she watched her younger sister,
and she thought maybe her mom would like a pretty picture to look at
when she got home from work. She also thought about how tired mom was
during the day, trying to sleep while the rest of the world was awake,
and she thought she might make a do-not-disturb sign for the front door.
And then she remembered her beautiful mittens, and thought she might
draw a pattern to send to grandma so grandma could make new mittens,
even some for her sister.
As soon as she got home, she sat her sister, Kate, at the kitchen table
for a snack, and as she did the breakfast dishes and tried to keep Kate
quiet so they would not wake up Mom, May thought of all the wonderful
art projects she could try. May was so busy planning her project, she
forgot about her hands. She finished the dishes, got out the mop to
clean up the milk that didn't quite make it to Kate's mouth, and chopped
potatoes for dinner. Mom was up by now, and was rushing out the door
to get to work. Mom kissed May on the head, told the girls she loved
them so-o-o-o- much, and went off to work.
May helped Kate with her bath, tucked her into bed, made up mom's bed,
and vacuumed the front room. After doing her homework, May went to bed
and dreamt of being a famous artist. Everyone in town marveled at her
beautiful paintings, she won awards from her school, and even got to
give a speech in front of the governor.
When May woke up, she jumped out of bed, excited about the art class.
As she braided Kate's hair, she saw her hands and suddenly realized
she could not paint or draw without the other children seeing her hands.
She could not get Kate ready fast enough, and practically pulled her
all the way to school. May ran to the hallway to cross her name off
the poster. It was not there. The poster and signup sheet was gone.
She went to class and told her teacher she needed to drop out of the
art class. The teacher said she would have to go to the art class and
tell the art teacher she was no longer interested in the class.
When May went to art class that day, she tried to get the teacher's
attention, but there were so many other children in the class and such
a lot of noise that May decided she would wait until after class to
talk to the art teacher.
After the teacher got the class to quiet down, she talked a little bit
about drawing things, how important it was to draw what you saw, even
if no one else saw the same thing. She said they would eventually draw
their pets and maybe even a family member, but that their first lesson
was to draw their own hand. May was stunned, and tried her very best
to not cry in front of the other children. Of all the things she wanted
to draw, her hand was certainly not one of them. She did her best to
draw her hand, ashamed to even look at the rough redness around the
nails. She had little bumps on her palms, and the lines in her hands
reminded her of grandma's hands. May finished her drawing and left as
quickly as possible, even before the teacher had collected the hand
pictures and told them what they would be doing the next day.
The following morning, May determined to tell the art teacher she could
not take the class anymore. When she got to art class, the teacher talked
about all the wonderful hand drawings she had gathered from their desks
the day before. The art teacher laughed about the hand drawing that
showed pink and purple dotted fingernails. She laughed about the hand
that had diamond rings on every finger, and four diamond rings on the
thumb. Then she held up a hand drawing that was familiar to May. It
showed a small hand, with fingers curled toward the palm as if holding
a precious stone or delicate butterfly. May shoved her hands under her
desk, and wanted to crawl under there to hide with her hands.
The teacher said, "Of all the hands drawings I saw yesterday, this
is the one I could not stop looking at. This is an interesting hand,
a beautiful hand, for it shows a hand that is not idle. It shows a hand
that has worked hard. The fingers are curved, as if to protect something
fragile." She walked to May's desk, and asked May, "Could
I please see your hand?" May did not want to show her hand, but
being accustomed to obeying teachers, she pulled her hand out from under
the desk. The teacher took May's hand into her own.
"Now," said the teacher, "as I hold in my own hand the
hand from this drawing, I can see that I was not wrong. It is a hand
that has caressed little kittens and held small daisies. It is a hand
that has washed many dishes, has folded laundry, given baths, and combed
hair. Yes, this is a very interesting hand. It is a beautiful hand."
With that, the teacher went back to her desk and started talking about
that afternoon's drawing assignment.
After class, May ran all the way home, dragging Kate part of the way,
and carrying her the rest of the way. She put the drawing on Mom's bed,
and with her rough red hands, she washed the dishes, fixed dinner, bathed
Kate, and finished her homework. As she lay down in bed, she noticed
the glow from the moon was shining on her hands. They looked different
tonight.
May thought of the many dishes and counters she washed when Mom was
sleeping. She thought of the times she had bathed her sister and cleaned
up the house when Mom was at work. She thought about the way her palm
fit over Kates' cheek, and how wonderful her sister's soft skin felt
to her hand. She remembered the tender kisses Mommy gave her hands when
she came home from work in the dark hours of the early morning. She
would hear her mommy say, "Thank you, May, for all your help. I
could not do this without you."
Just as the little girl with the red rough hands was starting to nod
off, she looked one more time at her hands. And she smiled, for they
really were most interesting hands.
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