MY HOME IS A CASTLE--the tale of how and why I became a chatelain , four times .This is my present home. If you are visiting for the first time you may care to read the older posts first.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

ALEX'S TRIBUTE TO HIS GRANDMOTHER

MY GRANDMOTHER LOUISE
I remember her hands,
work-worn and scaly
against my feathers.
Daily scrubbed in service
when she was a young girl and
never idle a moment.
Working fingers. Lean, like her voice
always correct and
always correcting me, sharply,
best as she knew how.
Hands that bathed me.
Hands that chastised me.
Hands that fed me, filled my own
with the strength a child needs.
Hands that loved me like her own.
Hands that knew pain; that felt,
through the hardy skin,
her love, only one, lifelessly
slip through her fingers
( to rest her hands from his weight)
Hands that touched winter
and denied the cold,
half-way to heaven as the knuckles
told her life in knotches.
These were the hands that shone stone
for a living, a lifetime;
the hands I remember,
ground to the bone.
By Alex
my beloved husband who passed away at this time 27th March 2001

21 comments:

  1. Hands tell alot about a person, don't they? When my friends' father was passing away last month, I asked if I could take a photo of his hands. They looked at me like I had two heads, but I went ahead anyway. I worked on the photo in Photoshop, just smoothing out the rough patches just a slight bit. It's now one of my friends prized possessions.
    Thanks for your kind comment on my blog today.

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  2. Beautiful poem - interestingly enough, I have posted a picture today of my hand and my grandson's hand as he slept in my lap.

    Wonderful that you would share that poem.

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  3. delphine, tell us more...was she english? i am so sorry you had to lose your husband. life is so hard at times. i just finished a wonderful uplifting book: the shack. too many people told me i must read it so i finally bought it two days ago and could barely put it down.

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  4. So loving and sensitive. What a beautiful poem.

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  5. So much history and love here, from you for your late husband and from him to his mother. I'm so sorry you lost your husband, but it's lovely you have his poem.

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  6. What a lovely poem about life viewed from a Mother's hands. Thanks for sharing this with us. Have a great weekend!

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  7. I really like this photo and the poem. I wish I had grandmothers to rememeber, but they had passed on before I would have developed a memory about them. Thanks for sharing this.

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  8. Country Girl, that's lovely! Alex had lovely long slim fingers, very delicate hands, I always look at peoples hands and how they use them when conversing.

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  9. Hello M, I shall pop over for a visit to see your grandson's hand. thankyou for your comment about the poem;

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  10. Kritter Keeper-- I know she looks German doesn't she, but, yes, she was very English, born and bred in the heart of London.
    I was married for nearly 41 years, it was a great loss for me.
    Who wrote ' the Shack'? I probably would not be able to get it over here, though.

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  11. Thankyou , Sandy, Alex's Mother went out to work, so he was brought up by his Grandmother. He was so fond of her.

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  12. I have a trunk full of his poems Maggie May some of them are on my other blog, mixed up with other posts. thankyou for your loving comments.

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  13. Thankyou Brenda you too! It will be a quiet one for us.

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  14. That is a shame Sandy, I am glad that I married young and had children early, it enables me now to enjoy my grandchildren and greatgrandchildren, and vice- versa. I am off to England in a wekk's time to see my new great grandaughter Natasha!

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  15. Your March 27th is over by now as I write this from the Midwest USA, but I just wanted to tell you that I'm thinking of you on this bittersweet anniversary ...
    A time to remember what was experienced...a time to miss it.

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  16. Thankyou so much Cottage Girl, three of my girls live in England and one in France, we were all together n oour thoughts yesterday. Breathe-- today is a new day!

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  17. I'm so sorry for your loss, but you have such wonderful memories of him, as he did of his grandmother. The sadness never really goes away, does it? No matter how much time passes. My heart is with you.

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  18. Bless you at this anniversary time, Delphine.

    Thank goodness people can't alter their hands in cosmetic surgery! (Am I right about that?) Aging hands are one of the beauties of life, IMHO.

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  19. What a gifted poet Alex was...it is my youngest son's middle name...and I love the name Delphine! It promises so much!!!

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