Her Hands

For Bà Nội

She was always in motion, like the steam that rose from her clay pots or the ash drifting from the morning fire. I don’t remember the full shape of her face, memory fades like fabric left too long in the sun, but I remember her hands. They smelled faintly of rice powder and ginger balm, and held the softness of something that had touched too much sorrow and still found a way to soothe. Her fingers were short, rounded at the tips, always warm, always working. She rolled her sleeves just past her wrists, as though prepared at any moment to kneel by a basin, stir the soup, wipe a tear. She raised eighteen children with those hands, eighteen souls, each cradled by her quiet strength. She never rested, not really. And when she did sit, her back stayed straight, her eyes watchful, her presence a shield the world never saw.

She worked in faraway cities, selling goods as a merchant. We never had much, but she brought home little treasures wrapped in cloth and tucked between fabric bolts. I would wait for the sound of the train every evening, listening for that low hum in the distance. When I heard it, my heart would skip. She would toss her heavy bags down at the gate, full of things meant to make life easier or more beautiful, and then she would walk the rest of the way home. I can still see her silhouette in the dusk light, strong and tireless, coming back to us like the sun does, without fanfare but always certain.

She used to dry lotus flowers in the late summer, spreading the petals gently on woven mats in the sun. The whole house would smell faintly sweet, earthy, floral, with something deeper beneath, like warmth rising from riverbanks. She told me the story once while we brewed a fresh pot of tea together, how the lotus blooms from mud, dirty, murky water, and still rises pure and fragrant. “It teaches us,” she said, as she poured the steeping water, “that beauty can grow from suffering. That even when life feels thick with pain, something soft and healing can rise.” I still drink that tea now, when the weight of the world gathers in my chest. I close my eyes, take in the scent, and remember the comfort of her voice in the quiet kitchen.

I was only seven when the illness came. Cancer, they said, though no one spoke the word around me. The house that once smelled of broth and laundry turned sour with wet cloth and overripe flowers. People whispered, as if afraid to name what was coming. I didn’t understand. She lay there, too still, too quiet. Her hands, now light as paper, still found mine. No words at first, just a quiet grip that held everything I couldn’t yet carry. Then she looked at me, eyes heavy but steady, and whispered, “You have to be strong now. For you.” I didn’t know what goodbye meant, so I didn’t say it. I crawled under her casket when they placed her in the room, lay there for hours, maybe days. Not crying, just being close. Not out of grief, I couldn’t name grief yet, but out of something deeper, a child’s refusal to let go of the only person who had ever looked at her like she mattered.

She died young, maybe late forties. But the years had been hard, and they lived in the curve of her spine and the callouses on her palms. Even now, I still see her in my dreams, her face soft around the edges, blurred like watercolor, but her smile as clear as the morning sun cutting through kitchen smoke. I don’t remember her death as pain. I only remember that after she left, the world felt colder, quieter, more alone.

And now, when the world feels heavy and I need something to hold me, I brew a cup of lotus tea. I sit quietly, letting the steam rise, letting it carry her back to me. I close my eyes, inhale deeply, and I see her hands- warm, worn, always moving. I let her memory wrap around me like a shawl. And I remember what she said, that the lotus grows from the mud, unbothered by the murk that feeds it. That its beauty is not despite the dirt, but because of it.

I drink slowly, letting the warmth settle in my chest. I think of her, and for a moment, I feel her inside me, steady, quiet, eternal. And I remind myself, I, too, am a lotus. Blooming in the mess. Rooted in the dark. Beautiful not because I am untouched, but because I’ve risen, flawed and whole, from the water