When my granddaughter was married in October, as “Granddaddy Bill” I was invited to the rehearsal dinner and the wedding the next day. At the rehearsal dinner, I shared a table with a friend I have known for over 55 years.
Sally and I are the only ones still remaining from the time that the family “I married into” used to sit down to a Sunday dinner of fried chicken with all of the trimmings surrounded by six others. It is virtually impossible for me to believe that this was in the late 1960s. I know what my elders meant now when they used to tell me just how fast time goes by. My maternal grandfather used to tell the young boys and girls: “I’ve got neckties older than you are.” Now, I know what he meant.
When Sally and I finished eating and got up from the table, she reached out with her left arm to hold my hand while steadying herself with her cane on her right side. I said to her that I am sometimes a little unsteady on my feet because of a left inner ear balance problem. This happened almost simultaneously and seemed “automatic” — two 80-year-olds helping each other walk across a floor much like the floor we used to dance on. It must have been the right thing to do since we arrived at our destination unscathed.
Afterward, I was struck with just how many ways there are in which we hold each other’s hands.
Recently, I attended the 83th birthday of a friend in Chapel Hill. Another friend of mine asked me if I wanted to ride with her. Beth is someone who I have never held hands with until that day. Beth parked across from our friend’s driveway. We took one look at the steep driveway leading up to the front door and both exclaimed, “I’m not sure about this.” Beth has a gimpy knee, I have a painful back, and climbing the “mountain” to eat some goodies and sing happy birthday suddenly seemed “far away.” Was it worth the risk of ascending the steep driveway?
I said to Beth: “Here, hold my hand and maybe we can make it.” We did, with each other’s help. Beth is a good friend and the need to hold hands never came up before the birthday party or when we have gone to lunch together, and it has not happened since. Yet another way of holding hands to assist each other in our old age.
When I was a small boy, my mom used to hold my hand as we walked across Snow Hill Street in Ayden to visit with my aunt and uncle. I am sure that she did this in many other situations that I have long since forgotten — always with my safety in mind: “William, when you cross the street, always look both ways first.” Then, seemingly in an instant, I was holding her hand in a nursing home a short time before she died.
My maternal grandparents used to take trips to Harker’s Island, one of the tiny land masses in the string of islands off our North Carolina coast. Granddaddy and Grandmamma became close friends with the couple who owned the tiny string of motel rooms that served as our sleeping quarters before we embarked on our deep-sea fishing trip the next day. As a young boy, I remember these days with great fondness because I grew to enjoy the fishing trips on the small fishing boats with just enough room for four people as we trolled for bluefish, bonito mackerel and king mackerel among others. Most of all, however, I loved being with my grandparents, two of the finest people who ever lived.
Paradoxically, my grandmother was “scared to death” of the water. She would not even walk out on a pier, whereas granddaddy’s favorite pastime was fishing in fresh water or salt water, river or ocean. Although I do not remember it, I am sure that Granddaddy held my hand as we walked out on the dock to board the fishing boat. I imagine Benny Brooks, one of the captains who took people out on the charter boats, took my hand as they both carefully helped me onto the deck. At first, I cared more about hearing the Cap’s — in charter boat parlance, all owners of the vessel were called “Cap” — yarns about his most interesting experiences on the high seas than I was in the fishing. I remember seeing porpoises and the occasional shark gliding through the beautiful blue water of the Atlantic Ocean.
I am sure that when our half-day or full-day fishing trip was over the process of getting me off the boat safely was reversed: Granddaddy and Benny would hold my hand as they helped me onto the pier. I doubt that Granddaddy ever dropped the grip that he had on my hand as we reversed course and re-entered the world of Harker’s Island.
My granddaughter’s wedding was outside. As we walked back to have the after-wedding feast, my grandson’s girlfriend, Connor, walked next to me. She said, “I am not sure that I can walk in the grass with these high heels on.”
I told her, “Well, I am not sure with my balance problem and bad back that I can walk on this grass either.”
You guessed it. Connor and I held onto each other as we shuffled through the green grass and returned to the site of our dinner. There was not even a stumble as the 20-something and the 80-year-old walked back to the wedding banquet that awaited us. How many times have I done something like this in my life, that is, hold someone’s hand?
When my daughter, Julieanne, was a baby, I would place her warm little body against my chest, and we would take a nap together on a weekend afternoon. It seemed like only a “few minutes” later that I was holding her hand just like my mother and grandfather had done for me decades before. As Julieanne’s four children grew up, holding their hands was a regular occurrence. Mother, father, granddaddy, grandmamma, uncle, aunt — it is all the same; safety and love go hand-in-hand.
When I take my developmentally disabled cousin, Frankie Peterson, to get ice cream, I hold her hand to steady her as we walk together into the ice cream parlor. This is both a show of fondness for her and a for her safety. Frankie is 75 years old and has become a little wobbly when she walks — especially on uneven ground. When she attended my wife’s funeral, Frankie was afraid because of the tangled undergrowth around the gravesite. Two volunteers were immediately by her side to help her. I was also helped by one of the owners of the conservation cemetery, Bluestem.
Of course, I cannot leave out the holding of hands by lovers — by the two individuals who are sharing their lives with each other. The clasping of hands in public or private is a show of love, of devotion to one another, to the intimacy that they share. One might see two pre-teens holding hands on a playground or in their neighborhood as they play various games and share the outdoors with each other. This holding of hands is quite different than two lovers later in life. It may look the same but the “meaning” is very different.
Holding hands: A tiny piece of life that can mean so much in so many ways.
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