Our Mightiest Tools
As you look down at your hands, take a moment to appreciate the irony of these two remarkable servants, these faithful resilient friends. We overlook their quiet strength, their resilience, these sensational tools of flesh and bone. Without second thought, they’ve been there with us from day one, performing countless tasks throughout our days. Through the exploration of childhood, the tenderness of parenting, the strength of adulthood. Over the last year especially, my hands have held a story of their own.
The winter of 2023-24 was the toughest I’ve experienced out on the land. The rains were relentless, the mud rising almost before our eyes. At the end of each day we would collapse into bed, our legs weary from the weight of the mud clinging to our boots. It was one of those years where the rhythms of life were dictated by the demands of the land but left little room for respite.
We took a break from the chaos happening outside for a festive break. My hands finding a rare moment of rest for the first time in months. They lay still in my lap, free from the chores of lugging firewood, rescuing muddy wellies and tying knots as rains came across sideways. I remember looking down at them and noticing how soft they’d become in just a few days. They’d been chapped, aching and toughened from the demands I’d put them through. Their strength was unwavering in their duty but on that day, as I sat around the table with my family, they were soft. I rubbed them together, looking at my clean nails and fingertips. Even the strongest hands need time to heal.
The break was short lived, as holidays usually are, the land as always called me back. The work resumed and with the first task of the day, the reality of my hands’ softened state revealed itself in a sharp, unexpected way. I was collecting firewood, grasping the rough pieces of wood one by one when a sliver, a shard of freshly cut pine lodged itself into my finger. It sent a jolt of pain up my arm for such a small wound, insignificant in the grand scheme of things but in that moment, it felt monumental. I tended my hands, wincing at this tiny splinter and wondering bitterly whether this would have happened had my hands been in their pre-holiday strength.
A moment of reflection washed over me as my hand throbbed. We take our hands for granted, they bear the imprint of our experiences, a roadmap of our journey in this life. I can show you the scar from when I used a craft knife to cut a rope as a child, where I jammed my finger into a garden shear or the lumps and bumps from my days playing hockey. We ask so much of these hands yet rarely do we pause to take care of them, at least I don’t.
My thoughts meandered to my father, whose hands tell a very different story. He’s in a wheelchair and his hands are his lifeline to the world. They are his instruments of independence, his connection to a mobile life with a reverence born from necessity. I remember once asking him if he’d like to try spoon carving with my husband. He gently declined, explaining he’d rather not risk his hands. I understood, feeling slightly foolish that I’d not recognised their importance before.
Six months after that winter, I tested my hands once again. This time, it was an injury which was avoidable had I been paying attention, not flapping with 100 things on my mind. Getting ready to head out for the day with my family, I stood by our van door wittering away about needing my sunglasses and mindlessly slammed the van door, with my thumb still resting on the door frame. I trapped my thumb, smashing the tiny tip behind the nail, just above the joint. It’s a part of the thumb which isn’t supposed to move-but it did. The pain had gone beyond painful, in fact, I couldn’t feel it but the wave of shock was so intense it left me breathless. I steadied myself on the step of the van, sucking in huge breaths of air in a strangely meditative state trying not to pass out, or vomit. Behind the nausea and the haze of the moment, I could hear my beloved husband urging me to open my eyes. As the shock subsided, I knew that this injury would mark a period of undoing for me.
As I write this now, the autumn after the injury, I have a new found respect for these hands of mine. The marks of the summer still laid bare on my slightly deformed thumb. I discovered the limits of my body, growing more aware of just how precious our hands are, extensions of who we are. I’ve found myself reflecting on the countless ways our hands serve us on many occasions since, taking a little more time to consider the impact of my day-to-days and how I can protect them more. I’ll be honest though, I won’t be changing many things, they are after all pretty impressive for the things they can do, I’ll just be a little more conscious as I grapple with brambles or, well, shutting the door.
Take a moment to honour your mightiest tools. Rub them together and generate heat. With gratitude, hold the heat to your heart, then your face and offer a word of appreciation.
“Thank you, hands, for all that you do. For the strength to labour, for the tenderness to heal. For holding, feeling, and touching all that is life”
