Luky:
I REGRET to admit that I had a boyfriend when I was only 11. He was an altar boy and used to fetch me for Benediction, if that makes it any better. Later it turned out that he was keen on my sister and used my affections as a sort of stepping stone into her good graces. In the end I gave him his freedom and her my blessing. The whole thing tinged that summer with a rather melancholy joy.
But why do I remember this boy? Because the only personal remark he ever made to me was: "You've got such cute fingers, just like little bunches of sausages."
He wasn't fooling. I have fingers like sausages and they're just about as much use to me as sausages. They never hampered my career, but they impair my housewifely skill, rendering me incapable of performing most of the arts considered necessary in a woman.
I myself have daughters, whose fingers resemble mine less than those of their two extremely capable grandmothers. They play the piano with them, crochet, paint pictures and bake sponge cakes that rise. I'm very pleased about it, I'd rather struggle with clever kids than vice versa, but when I see with how comparatively little effort they master arts all women are supposed to be born with ( a fallacy if ever there was one) I shake my head and look sadly at my sausage fingers.
In some ways it is relaxing not to be able to do things like other women. When my sheets become thin in the centres I just pass them on to friends and buy new ones. They, on the other hand, get that peculiarly feminine glint in their eyes that says: "A half an hour's work on these and they'll do me for five more years." To the uninitiated, she snaps them lengthwise across the centres, then stitches the sides together, hems the new sides which once were the centre and hey presto! You could use the sheet as a hammock.
How do I know? Well, I told you there is something unusual with my fingers but my brain is OK.
Contrary to what you might expect, my husband laughs at my undomesticated ways. I think they fill him with that sense of superiority, so indispensable in a successful husband-wife relationship. Whenever a domestic catastrophe occurs, he bursts our laughing, and all afternoon I can hear him repeating softly to himself, "Oh, I could write a book about that girl."
My mom is a dressmaker by profession and you never saw a garment of any description with a button missing or a tear in it. Once when she was away, I discovered a hole in a table cloth. I don't know what possessed me, but I quickly darned it. Later my mother told me that this was the only time in her life anyone had ever done any sewing for her. Yet, when Sausage Fingers here was expecting a baby, the only one who was not knitting for him or her, was herself.
Catherine Nicolette;
Well now. Mom denigrates her fingers, comparing them to Vogue beauties who model nail beauty aids for a living. I have news for her. Their hands may be lovely, but she has the most beautiful hands in the world.
All I can ever remember is those hands cooking meals for us, cleaning the house, washing clothes and curtains, weeding the garden and holding us close to comfort us. Those hands typed countless letters, documents and newspaper articles, in order to put food on the table when times were tough. They typed church newsletters and theological education by extension courses, to help priests spread the Word of God. Those hands stamped books in the library to bring in a salary, when Dad nearly died and was bedridden for close to a year.
Most of all, those hands held babies and brought us to church, held books to teach us to read and worship. Her hands, later plagued with arthritis, prayed the rosary. In later years Mom learned to play the piano and organ, and played hymns of praise to God during Mass.
I have always admired Mom's hands and some years ago told her so. She was genuinely surprised and held them up. "These?" I nodded. I told Mom I was planning to write about prayer and the holy rosary, and asked if she would pose for the illustration. She agreed. And here, gracing the page, are the most beautiful hands in all the world: Mom, praying the rosary.
How to pray the rosary - may be found on pages 68 to 68 of the book below, "Three Little Shepherds meet Our Lady of the Rosary"
Read "Three Little Shepherds meet Our Lady of the Rosary"
Pray at the holy grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes
https://directfromlourdes.com/lourdes_live_tv
With thanks to directfromlourdes.com
