Dad's Hands

Mom gave me some of Dad's leather gloves, funny how they smelled like him. They were surprisingly small, I'd always thought he had big hands. Thinking so, probably from the time when I was so small, I'd hang on to his forefinger because that's all my hand could reach around. I remember thinking I was really growing up when my hand could reach around 2 of his fingers. Handholding with Dad probably ended with 2 fingers, when I was that age we didn't need to be so connected. Besides, there were a lot of other little hands that needed Dad's hands at that time.
When he was dying in the hospital, there was a lot of handholding, like we needed that connection. He couldn't communicate much verbally, but the looks and hand squeeze were somehow comforting, I like to think he got some comfort from this as well.
The last time I held his hand, it was a few minutes after he had died. The surprise was how quickly it had turned cold, I didn't want to hold those cold hands anymore, I'll just keep the memory of those warm living hands.
He sometimes looked at his hands, as in wonder of how they worked. When the hands shook, it was a curiosity to him, as what was the cause and effect of other things that were happening to his body.
My father's hands were always there- to lead, to give a boost up, to play a game, to fix things and then to teach how to fix things myself.