I have a few lucid memories of when I was quite young.  My grand daddy lived just a short walk across the ditch to the tobacco barns and chicken pen, then the house.  They lived in an old clapboard house. 

Some of my memories of my grand dad was to watching him shave in front of a mirror by the back door.  I watched, as he cut his gray whiskers away from his face more than once.  He wore wire frame glasses, which I now have.  They are frail looking, but I open them up and can still imagine them on his face.

My grand dad and I would go for a walks or just sit in a swing on the front porch and talk.  I remember one day observing my young five year old hand against his.  There I was.  This young tow headed boy with fresh smooth skin on my hand.  I placed it next to his weather beaten hand.  He had endured many days in the fields on the farm plowing, harvesting and tending to the animals.  His nails were rough edged.  Even with that his hand was gentle to run it across the back of my head when he’d tell me I was special to him.  Wrinkles on the back of his hand made me ponder would mine look like that when I got older.

Now that I’m sixty, I have two grand daughters.  One is seven and the other has a birthday coming up in July.  She’ll be three.  I sometimes look at my now aged hand and see my grand dad’s hand.  But there’s nothing in them.  I cannot hold my grand daughters’ hands.  The older lives close by, but she may as well live the same distance away as the other.  I miss them.  I have no young fresh skinned hand in mine while we walk or sit in the swing.