In the culture I am from, I learned to have a great respect for the elderly. I see wisdom and history on their hands that also reflect on their no longer youthful faces. Often overlooked.

Now that I am a mother, I think I now wash more hands than I watch hands. I rush to and fro and just trying to keep up with the feet of my children. Sometimes I forgot why I do what I do, until today...

As I was contemplating, I saw a pair of hands, young and smooth, seemingly ordinary. Then the hands turned, revealing the palms, that's when I saw the nail marks. I think back to all the hands that I've observed in the past, all the stories I came up with in my head with each hand that fascinates me... they all seem to fall to the background, the noises inside my head fade, muted.

Of all the hands I have watched, the pair with the nail marks has affected my life in a most personal and profound way possible. The stories I can recall from those pair of hands: a lifetime of service, unconditional love, the way to be.

I think again about washing the hands of my children, how it becomes more significant than I think. The hands of a mother and the hands of Christ translate love. Our hands as a mother that wash, heal, feed, comfort and patch up scars- all these mundane little things, but "It's by small means that great things come to pass." I feel privileged to be that pair of hands.