View From a Prairie Home

by Hege Hernfindahl, Columnist

I look at our hands. It is said that if you wonder how old someone is, look at their hands. We were holding hands across the table while Roberta Flack sang “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” Our faces looked weathered and old, but it was our hands that really showed our age. Full of age spots, wrinkled and with protruding veins. But we were filled with wonder. Had it been 50 years? Since we got engaged to be married? At the time, we celebrated with my parents at a French restaurant in Oslo. It was, or maybe still is, a custom in Norway to exchange rings on engagement day. Inside each ring was engraved the date of our engagement and our names. We still wear those rings, even though our fingers are now thicker.

I have always thought that there is nothing more personal than hands. Our hands have been with us forever and bear the scars of all we have lived with. As my beloved grandfather lay dying, I stroked his hands and thought of what all those hands had done throughout his long life. That same year, 1980, our youngest son, Erland, was born and I remember his tiny hands tentatively touching mine as I tenderly stroked his beautiful face.  Newborn babies are nearsighted and use their hands to explore their new world.

Research has shown that our hands are the most sensitive part of our body. When we hold hands with someone, we feel less alone. We feel loved and we feel less scared.

A team of researchers at the University of Virginia wanted to explore how stress could be reduced by holding hands. Twenty volunteers were placed under a MRI scan and told they were in danger of getting an electric shock. When holding a hand, even the hand of a stranger, their stress level went down significantly. And when holding the hand of a beloved friend or family member, their stress level went even further down. Most cultures greet people by shaking their hands.

Last year, at church, we performed a cantata called “The Living Last Supper.” One of our songs was called “His Hands.” We sang about Jesus’ hands when he fell as a boy and his hands took the fall. About when his hands blessed the bread and a multitude was fed. About how his hands raised Lazarus from the dead and how his hands had nails pounded through them before he was hung from them on the cross and died for us. And how his hands were flesh and blood, yet divine. We sang many beautiful and moving songs that Palm Sunday, but the song about Jesus’ hands almost brought me to tears every time. The personal message of Jesus in human form came to me much stronger when contemplating his hands.

Grant and I have traveled together for 50 years now. As the years went by, we had so much joy. Three children born healthy and growing up with their hands firmly in ours. Together we guided them through the ups and downs of childhood and teenage hood until we let go and let them fly. As the last one, Erland, left the nest, we turned to each other, holding hands and concentrating on our relationship. Then, almost two years ago, came the biggest tragedy of our lives, losing our youngest from cancer. Through the fog of grief, when the funeral was over and everyone had left, we still had each other. And into the darkest nights of our lives, we moved, two old, devastated people, holding hands.