Handmade Treasures....

I recently wrote about my Mother’s hands – and all I have is the memory of those hands.
But my Daddy’s hands, well, I have this wonderful photo a newspaper took when they did an article on his woodworking, calling him a “Santa” of sorts.
This photo shows his hands clearly. Even though he was well into his 60’s at the time, I always remembered his hands looking exactly that same way.
Strong. Huge. Rough.

I remember him putting Lanolin on them at night to soften them just a little. I know, from my woodworking husband, that a woodworker doesn’t want their hands to be too soft – splinters would too easily pierce the tender skin.

But Daddy’s always seems to be like granite. Cracked almost to the point of bleeding. But they never did. Or at least, that I know of. They felt like his skin was too small for his hands. Tight. Like leather. Like a leather glove that’s not yours.

As big and strong as his hands were, he never used them in anger. He did have a huge Irish temper – but he took out his anger on walls, refrigerators, anything close, but NEVER us. Never my Mother. Ever.

This photo shows him making a delicate teeny pedestal table for a doll house. In the end, he went from building people houses to building doll houses. He’d shingle the roofs, wallpaper the walls. Teeny work for big ‘ol hands! He did this with tenderness. Having respect for “small”. I loved that.
The only things I have of his woodworking days is a couple of cutting boards, one clothes-pin duck memo holder and a small doll crib he made for my daughter. Sad, huh?

However, my own granddaughter has a horse corral that her Grandpa Randy, made for her one Christmas.
Has stalls, a slanted roof – the whole works. And she loved it. Even though her young-girl horse-loving days have moved on to make-up and boys, I think she treasures that corral and knows she has a part of her history.
And love.
Because that’s why they make things like this. To show their love. And for that, I loved my Dad. And I love, love, love my husband, Randy.
Treasure all that is given to you, handmade, by hands that love YOU. Treasure them always. And bless the hands that made them.