I remember noticing my husband’s hands the moment I met him.  (That should have been a clue to me that something was up—I’ve never been a “hands” person or noticed hands, I guess there was something different about him!) My husband’s hands are good and kind hands. Hands that feel so right when they hold mine. Hands that squeeze mine during songs, movies or conversations, every time, in just the “right” and most romantic, places. (I must be a joy to be romantically involved with. Not! I’m so clueless; all of the time, it seems. For the longest time in our relationship when he squeezed my hand I’d think it was a mistake; a twitch or a reflex, but never on purpose! However, I’ve finally gotten that it’s intentional Romantic, even.)

When I think about my husband’s hands, I remember my youngest walking up to him the first time he spent any time with him at all, and how he put his tiny hand right into my husband’s hand and didn’t let go the entire day. I think of my husband’s hands working to provide for our family; tirelessly serving all eight children (even the grown, adult ones and their children); doing dishes; unloading the dishwasher; sweeping the floor; helping with homework; playing ball with the kids; doing yard work (despite the fact he’d joyfully retired from it and bought a condo prior to our marriage); planting a garden with my younger children every year; cooking Japanese food for our family; cooking breakfast every morning before work; playing the piano; opening doors for me and so many other things. I think of his hands wearing a wedding ring (my dad didn’t wear a wedding ring, and I’ve never been married to a man who wore a wedding ring, so it’s a new thing for me—but I like it!) And I’ll never forget my husband’s hand, clasping mine, on the day we married.

I guess I’m a hand person after all.

“Miss Morstan and I stood together, and her hand was in mine. A wondrous subtle thing is love, for here were we two, who had never seen each other until that day, between whom no word or even look of affection had ever passed, and yet now in an hour of trouble our hands instinctively sought for each other. I have marveled at it since, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing that I would go out to her so, and, as she has often told me, there was in her also the instinct to turn to me for comfort and protection. So we stood hand in hand like two children, and there was peace in our hearts for all the dark things that surrounded us.” (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, “Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Volume 1″)