Last week I was taking notes at a meeting and I suddenly noticed my hands. However I might appear to others, my hands have always betrayed me. They are workman’s hands, big-knuckled, covered in ropey veins and papery skin. I swear they are mummified. When I looked at them this time, I saw age spots.
“I have my mother’s hands,” I later told my teacher.
Last week I read about a conference entitled The Emerging Face of Something or The Other. I’m not being specific because “emerging face” is applied to all kinds of things to make them seem new or trendy or interesting. Like that magazine article that chooses 50 of the Most Fascinating People of the Year. You don’t know 25 of them and you won’t remember the other 25 by the end of the week. We all have about three minutes when we’re just fascinated by our own emergence. Then our real face shows up, and it’s not so new after all. We stop finding ourselves remarkable, and then we can begin to do good for others.
“Do you ever hear yourself speak with her voice?” he asked me.
Wednesday will be the tenth anniversary of my mother’s death. I remembered this picture of her, taken in my backyard, holding baby Georgia. Everyone is dressed up for this, the baby in one of those darling outfits you manage to put on once before they are outgrown. Mom is wearing a wig, since she is bald after her first round of chemo. We are happy and hopeful. I can see her hands, which are my hands, and I can see her face, which is my face, and I can see everything that will emerge from this moment.
“On my best days,” I answered. “I hear my mother’s voice on my best days.”
Karen, this is your mother.

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