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           I remember my father’s hands.  They were perfect “man” hands, large, rectangular, just enough hair between the joints of the fingers.  His nails were squared, always clean, neatly clipped, never bitten, with a clean edge.  They were hands that did desk work, but also, on the weekends, yard work, home repairs, and, on every holiday, dinner dishes from large family meals.  Mom cooked; Dad did the dishes.

             He never wore a wedding ring; I don’t even know if he had one.  One year, my mother gave him a pinkie ring with a tiger eye stone.  It was the only jewelry I ever saw him wear.  I always thought the term “pinkie ring” sounded foolish, effeminate, certainly not something a “man’s man” like my father would wear.  But I remember how it looked on his hand, almost regal, as though it knew it would never find a more handsome hand, a more fitting one.

             My father’s hands always inspired deep emotion in me.  When I was little, it was often fear, because he did hit us sometimes, back when “spare the rod, spoil the child” was the childrearing advice given to most parents.    As I got older, the fear was of a different sort, especially when his hands were “fixing” something around the house.  If the repair of the day involved plumbing, those hands could be frightening indeed.

 He would start early on a Saturday morning announcing, “I’m fixing the leak in the basement.  The water will be off for about an hour.”  My sister and I would begin to shriek and wail, “Mom, we’ve got to go out tonight!  Can’t you just get a plumber?”  Followed by, “Oh girls, don’t be ridiculous; your father will be done in a little while.”          

Six hours, three trips to the hardware store, eighty-five swear words and two rolls of duct tape later, the water was still off and my sister and I were reduced to using “dry shampoo” and lots of talcum powder.  Later that week, the plumber, observing the duct-taped pipes would say, “Your husband was fixing the pipes again, huh?” before undoing my father’s handiwork.

After I left home for a husband and marriage, I didn’t see as much of my father’s hands.  We lived in an apartment so there was nothing for him to “fix”.  But when I would visit, he would insist on walking me to my car.  He would take my elbow in his right hand and walk me, practically lifting me off of the sidewalk until I was deposited safely in the driver’s seat.  I was always so annoyed by the time I got home; the ritual became in my mind, one last effort at controlling me, one final way of letting me know he was still in charge.  I couldn’t seem to break completely free of those hands and I hated it.  

When my children were born, my father’s hands became gentle, something I do not remember from my own childhood.  His grandchildren had him completely befuddled, because they were not afraid of him.  They laughed at him, and the ogre disappeared as he shrugged his shoulders and threw up his hands at these babies who found him amusing instead of frightening.  He played ball with them, wrestled with them, still “man” things, but they enjoyed him and I enjoyed him then, too.                             

The last few months of his life, my father was again working with his hands, wallpapering the home in the suburbs he had just moved into with my mother.  He was happy with the move; he had grown up outside of the city, but spent his married life raising his children in urban Northeast Philadelphia.  For as long as I could remember, he longed to move and live in his own little “kingdom” in the suburbs.  My mother, a city girl born and bred, felt as though she had been exiled to Siberia, even though their new house was only minutes from my own.  My father once again dove in with both hands to fix something.  Surely, a redecorated interior would make the move easier on my mother.

 When he wasn’t inside papering, he was outside in the huge yard, weeding, hammering, fixing the old fence, his hands always busy, even if they were covered with poison ivy.  (Though he fancied himself a gardener, he didn’t know the difference between poison ivy and a grape vine, even if it were covered with fruit.)  My father loved that house.  He lived there for eight months, not nearly long enough.

When my father lay in the hospital, with no hope of recovery from a stroke he suffered just two weeks shy of his sixty-first birthday, I recall looking at his hands.  How could these hands, which had insisted on inserting themselves into our lives, like it or not, be stilled?  No more fixing, controlling, duct-taping, gardening, or playing with his grandchildren. 

At my father’s viewing, my hands took over, shaking hundreds of other hands, occasionally reaching over to touch him, as though they needed another sense to confirm the reality, since my eyes would not believe what they saw.  I don’t know if they use make-up on hands when preparing a body, but his hands still looked perfect, except that they were still, perfectly still.

 My father has been gone for thirteen years now, and I miss him every day.  But mostly, I remember my father’s hands.

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By her calculations, it was two years, two months and four days.  I knew better than to question her; after all, when you have a mouthful of metal, you know down almost to the minute how long it’s been.  At her orthodontist visit the week before, my youngest had been informed that what she had waited so long for was finally about to happen.  The braces were coming off. 

             The entire process of removing the devices would take at least two hours.  I dropped her off in the morning (it was a school day, but some things just shouldn’t wait) and went to run errands until it was time to pick her up.  When I returned, the little girl I had left was gone.  In her place stood a young lady with a brilliant smile (although she swears she needs to use those white-strip things) and a new air of confidence about her.  No more wondering if she should smile openly for those school pictures.  No more Mona Lisa half-smiles in photos with her friends.  It had been a long two years, and she was ready to show the world what she had won for her efforts. 

             As she grinned, I smiled along with her, but unlike her, my emotions were mixed.  Of course I was happy for her.  I wore braces for four years; nothing is better (or weirder at first) than feeling the smoothness of your teeth again.  It’s hard to imagine that you’re through eating mushy food for two days after your orthodontist appointment.  Or that you’ll never again have to worry about a loose wire jabbing the inside of your cheeks.  And lying in a chair with someone’s hands inside of your mouth (up to their elbows, it often seemed) was to become a thing of the past.  

             I was happy for her, yes.  But as I watched her try out her new smile, I felt an odd pang, unrecognizable, at first.  Then I heard it; the almost imperceptible sound of another page turning, another chapter closing.

             We were done with braces.  Meg was the last, and with that ending, the door seemed to be officially closing on the “babies” in my life.  Sure, we were out of the diaper stage a long time ago, but as long as you have one in braces, it seems like there is still a child around.  (I should note that Meg is far and away the most sensible one in the house, despite, or maybe because of her position in the family, but she is still my baby.)  Her graduation from grade school in June will only serve to underscore what I already know: all of my babies are growing up.

             And I don’t miss diapers, or car seats, or earaches, or temper tantrums (actually, we haven’t completely grown out of those, yet).  I have only to look to my neighbors next door to be reminded of how hard that all was. 

 However, I know, as I watch my kids grow, that I will occasionally feel a bit wistful when I smile at them and they smile back, minus those shiny grins.     

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            Sometimes it’s hard to like them.

             Babies, toddlers, young children.  All are easy to like and enjoy, easy to love.  Little compares to the gurgling smile of a baby.  A crude drawing presented as a gift by a sticky-fingered toddler is hard to resist.  And a youngster just starting school who claims mommy and daddy as heroes can melt the coldest heart.

             It’s when they start to grow away from you, when they push to keep you at a distance, when they greet you with sullen stares instead of the open, welcoming grins of childhood.  That’s when it gets hard.

             As our children grow, it is their job to separate from us, to find their own identities, to make their own way.  But the separation is never easy, no matter how close the parent and child.  The separating of an adolescent from a parent is usually wrenching—nothing gentle about it.

             The kids separate from us emotionally, becoming secretive, whispering cryptically to their friends to keep us from overhearing conversations.  They develop their own languages, for boys a collection of grunts and growls, from girls a series of abbreviated phrases and expressions, all unintelligible to those over the age of twenty-five.

             At the same time, they can’t get far enough from us physically, squirreling themselves away in their rooms or retreating to basements to take up semi-permanent cave dweller status.

             For our parts, we parents object only minimally to the physical separation, as the disdain with which our teens treat us could try the patience of Job.  The physical distance provides a neutral zone which both parties are loathe to cross.  We spend our children’s teen years circling around each other warily, each waiting for the other to force the next break in an uneasy truce.  And the breaks come, with frequency, reigniting the flames of old, oft-repeated arguments.

             Soon enough, the time comes for our children to look for a new home, at least temporarily.  College living is the first real test of life away from the nest, for the kids and for parents.  Most of the adults I know who are in the throes of sending the kids off to college have little fear of the mythical “empty-nest syndrome.”  Rather, they anticipate with eagerness the opportunity to try new things, to not cook dinner occasionally, to have full-fledged conversations with a spouse whom they vaguely remember from the years B.K. (before kids).

             To that end, we spend hours researching colleges, adding hundreds of miles to our car’s odometer for school visits, conversing with admissions counselors, filing financial forms and attending to the endless minutiae of the college application process. 

             We fervently hope to send our kids into an environment which will enrich them, allow them to mature, and keep them safe, sending back to us young adults who might actually like us again, in lieu of the youths who ran out our doors.

             When we ship the kids off to college, we never think that they might not return.

             Yet, that is precisely the horror faced by the families who lost loved ones in the devastating tragedy visited upon Virginia Tech by a madman with a gun.

             Some kids will not come home.  They will never become the full-fledged adults leading the fulfilling lives that they dreamed of and their parents prayed for. 

             I have two children living away at college, and that knowledge never made me ill and numb with fear until this week.

             Sometimes they drive us crazy.  Sometimes it’s hard to like them.  But make sure, be absolutely certain that at every moment, they know how much you love them.

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            I sat through the last dance dress rehearsal, watching amused as the youngest dancers crowded around the edge of the stage, staring up adoringly at the senior line students, rehearsing one of their many numbers for the studio’s annual dance recital.

             The little girls ooohhhed and aaahhhed their approval at the oldest students, who occasionally glanced down and smiled at their young, adoring public, making the little girls’ day.  I looked for my youngest daughter’s face among the group crowded at the stage’s apron, momentarily perplexed when I didn’t see her there.  But then, she was dancing on the stage, not staring up at it.

             It was only yesterday when my own little girls tentatively tied on their tap shoes and tripped their way onto the stage for the first time.  How, then, had I gotten here, with one daughter already graduated from the studio and my youngest about to perform in her final recital?

             A mere sixteen years ago, dance had begun for my daughters as a fun, inexpensive, one hour a week activity at the local Y.  Somehow, in the ensuing years, it had morphed into a three day per week, maybe we can pay for the dance lessons if we don’t pay the mortgage, extravaganza which had come to commandeer nine months of our lives annually.  At their dancing peak, both girls took tap, jazz, ballet and lyrical lessons each week, not counting competition practice, which added a full five hours of instruction and practice to their schedules every Saturday.

             Ah, competition dancing.  The zenith of the dance world for amateurs, attained by my daughters when they were fourteen and eleven, respectively.

             Competition dancing exists in an alien world which bears no resemblance to reality.  The first year the girls had made the team, we arrived at the venue—a school overrun by dance-crazed kids and their mothers for the weekend—staring open-mouthed at the scene before us.  Hundreds of young girls (a few boys here and there) encased in form-fitting, sequin studded costumes, batting eyes heavily cloaked in false eyelashes, pushing and pulling racks of costumes to assigned dressing rooms, sashayed before us, swallowing us into the mini-mob scene.

             Hours later, having sat through over one hundred dance routines, I wearily drove home with two happily exhausted girls clutching gold ribbons in their hands.  My one thought?  I can’t do this; I’m not a dance mom. 

             Needless to say, I did do it.  I sat devotedly through sixteen years of dance between both of my daughters, including seven years of competitions (over thirty competitions in all).  I fixed broken costume straps, hemmed too-long pants, Velcro-ed hair pieces into place.  I assembled one of the best sewing kits in the dance company, with a fix for every problem.  I worked backstage at recitals, running for water to quench overheated dancers.  I iced injuries, bandaged pulled muscles and always found words of encouragement.

             And I watched, constantly amazed, at the beauty of these children, especially my girls, who moved with such grace and fluidity across the stage, expressing themselves in a way their mother could only dream of.

             Now, after sixteen years, I sat in the auditorium watching my youngest daughter’s final recital, having witnessed my elder daughter’s three years before.  While that was hard, this was unthinkable.  No more dance, at least no more that would involve a mom.  (College dance companies tend to frown on mommy groupies.)

             As Megan performed her final routine, my daughter, Laura, joined me in the audience.  “Are you okay?” she asked.  “No,” I answered, my eyes filling.

             Sixteen long, wonderful years.  And I was a dance mom.

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Dear Santa, 

             I know I’m running a little late with the whole Christmas list thing, but I’ve been a bit  busy myself, trying to do my part to contribute to all of this ho-ho-ho-ing in the spirit of the season.

             As you well know, it hasn’t been easy going.  Things are tense just about everywhere, and people seem to get testy this time of year—more so than usual, which is pretty ironic, given the fact that this is supposed to be the season of good cheer and all.

             I’ve done most of my shopping, and I can’t help but notice that the stuff people seem to need most isn’t on any store shelf that I can find.  So, I’m writing to ask if you would mind throwing a few extra items in your sack of gifts this year.  I’m not even sure you stock these things, but any reasonable facsimile will do.  And the sooner you can get the stuff here, the better for all of us.

             Item 1:  Patience.  Boy is this one a biggie.  The closer we get to the big day, the less people appear to have it, and the more they need it.  Again, pretty ironic, huh?  Anyway, a little more patience in a traffic jam, or in line at a store behind someone who has decided to do all of his shopping in one evening and now wants to pay by check, would be a welcome change from the snarls, stares and swearing going on now.  I know I could use a generous helping of some, and if I’ve snarled, stared or sworn at anyone in the past few weeks, I apologize.  (And I’m pretty sure I have.)

             Item 2:  A Listening Ear.  What’s that, Santa?  You’re having trouble hearing all of the good little boys and girls because everyone is talking at once and no one listens anymore?  I know how you feel.  Seems like the world is degenerating into one big shouting match.  This one goes right to the top.  World leaders, church leaders, business leaders, anyone who leads anything needs to stop talking and listen a little more.  We might get something done once in a while.  And I’m not exempt from this one either, especially where those nearest and dearest to me are concerned.  In fact, if you’re handing out listening ears, make mine a double.

             Item 3:  Common Sense.  I know.  I’m pushing it with this one.  Common sense has been in short supply since at least the days of Harry Truman, possibly before.  But we need some now, more than ever, and this one, too, spans the generations.  For example, a young lady (not my daughter this time) with some common sense would not wear fur-lined boots outdoors on a chilly December day and then refuse to wear a jacket because it might interfere with her “look.”  Her parents, had some common sense been available, probably wouldn’t have bought her the two hundred dollar boots anyway.  They would have bought her a jacket.  (And I happen to know from first-hand experience that “Fuggs” boots—fake Uggs for the uninitiated—are just as warm and cute as the originals and a lot cheaper.)   

             Needless to say, the application of some plain old common sense on a broader, say global, scale would have to be an improvement over whatever we’re doing now.  It sure couldn’t be any worse.

             Well, Santa, that’s it.  Only three things on my list.  Even so, I know it’s a tall order to fill.  Like I said, we’ll take whatever you’ve got.

             And Santa?  Could you hurry?  We need it bad.

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