Fingerprints

We leave fingerprints wherever we go, don’t we?  Individual and unique as we are ourselves--we never know who—or when—they may touch…

My sweet aunt left me the most beautiful memory out of  the blue on Facebook last week—on a day that I really needed to be touched.  She wrote…

 “Just happened to think of this--when you were about  1/2-2 years old,  you came from Boston with your parents  for a visit. When you left,  there were your handprints in many places on the sliding door in the living room.  Mom would not clean that window for months--I seem to remember it wasn't until your handprints had faded.

{my grandmother, LaPriel Riggs Smith}

“She loved those precious prints on her window because they were her reminder that you had been there. Those visits were such happy times for us and so important to her. How she loved being a grandmother.

She continued--“My daughter-in-law and her 3 little girls were here this week for 3 days, and after they left the house was so quiet. As I saw fingerprints on the windows of the door going to the patio I cried, as I really understood and knew how much those handprints were loved by your grandmother.

“I haven't moved the dolls from where the girls were playing with them or put the rocking horses back in place. Grandmothers love memories that little things show them grandchildren were here. Love you…”

I cried, too, as I read her loving words to me.  And then it made me cry again as I realized that my three babies’ handprints were all grown up now--but they were all around me now for a very brief window of time…

So I decided to do something about it.

I couldn’t  re-capture days gone by…can’t reclaim all of those fingerprints on windows and mirrors…but I could capture them now—today—so that I would always have them as they were right now.  With me.  Before they left me to continue on with their lives away from home…..

And so I did.

 

Those chubby, adorable little girl fingerprints are much bigger now, but in their place are the lovely hands of three beautiful, capable young women who are doing so much good with those hands of theirs…

 

…maybe I’ll ask them to leave handprints on my windows before they leave—just because…

Julie

{baby hands & child at window images found on Google Images, Victorian hand image courtesy of The Graphics Fairy}

LiveJournal Tags: art journal,fingerprints,handprints,memories,LaPriel Riggs Smith,love,keepsake