The hands of my grandfather.

The hands of my grandfather could have as easily strangled a chicom as stroke a kitten. Truth be told, in a long, colorful life, he did both, but he hadn’t done either as much as perhaps he should have.

A life. Calluses. Nails blackened,  jammed into this machine or that. A thumbnail ripped off on the intake manifold of a 1971 El Camino.  Endlessly fixing.  A palm scarred on the hot barrel of an M26 Pershing at Chosin.  Building. Improving lives. A different generation. Arthritis is a slight inconvenience, never crippling.

And now death is close, but that doesn’t slow him either. He  brandishes the cane at us as we try to distract him from the attendant sneaking up from behind with the syringe. 

In a second, it’s over, the needle now plunged into Pop’s neck. 

The hands of my grandfather have stories to tell. This is the last.