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Julia Fox Ms. Gardner English 10, 2nd Period 24 January 2014 Hold My Hand, and Let Go Nana, why are your hands always so warm? I sat beneath my Nana, her in the reclining chair, me, criss crossed on the dusty floor, and full from the Christmas Eve dinner we had just devoured. Because the Nanas with the most love, hold it in their hands, to pass it on to their children and grandchildren, and especially for you, great grandchildren. The lines around her mouth deepened as she talked. Thats not true! Its probably just because youre wearing a sweater! Being eight, I thought I had the world figured out; barbies were the best cure to boredom, and also the greatest friends, while showers were the enemy and halted all fun until my body was thouroughly washed. When I was nine, Nanas love ran out. Dressed in a rose colored dress, clutching my baby doll, Marsha, in one hand, and my dads perspiring grip in the other, I walked up to her casket, and peered in. She looked like herself, dressed in the outfit she wore on her ninety-second birthday, lilac in color, and I reached my hand up to grab hers, expecting to feel her warm wrinkled palm interlock with mine. To my surprise, her hand was limp, and cold, and lacking everything I was anticipating. Shocked, I pulled away quickly before my eyes were muddled with tears and my cheeks started to feel heavy. My mom and dad told me all of her love had all been used; she had given it away to all of her family and friends through a handshake, a batch of

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cookies she slaved in the kitchen to make, and even through the scarf she knitted me for the winter months, but that was too short to wrap twice around my neck, and too long to only wrap once. Audrey Hepburn once said, As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others. A hug from your mother, a pat on the back from your coach after a rough game: these simple gestures help our bodies more than we realize. Psychologist Matthew Hertenstein studied the power of touch, and found, Participants communicated eight distinct emotionsanger, fear, disgust, love, gratitude, sympathy, happiness, and sadnesswith accuracy rates as high as 78 percent. I was surprised, Hertenstein admits. I thought the accuracy would be at chance level, about 25 percent. Similiar to Hertenstein, I was unaware of what our body can sense through a lending of a hand or a handshake. Going to Spain for a semester abroad, widened my knowledge of different cultures and their history. A touch on the shoulder, or two kisses on your cheeks, were essential to the life everyone lived there. Expression through hand movements exerted your mood, and whether you were thought to be approachable or not. This culture shock I was not expecting, and took my Nanas principle to a new level of importance for my survival in a very foreign country. I communicated more-so with my hands than I did with my words. It was the feeling a touch had, the unspoken language of feel, that helped me comunicate in a different language. The feeling I felt was universal with my Spanish friends, comfortable, and helped me tremendously survive hard times and even, awkward moments. Not until I was about ten, when barbies were replaced with the Jonas Brothers and showers were upgraded to a good stalling technique from chores, did I realize what my dads job

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was, and how hands and the ways he could use them effected his work. Having a dad whos a police officer has never been easy, the constant uneasiness of knowing he was walking the streets at night looking for danger, never became less alarming. I knew my Nana was proud of him, but I never understood how she was so calm about his line of work. Through his job, the stories he would tell, and the way the policemen were trained, I learned how he needed his hands. Captain Jason Fox, is my dad, but he is also a man who has the capability to hand a homeless man a fleece blanket, or pull the trigger on a gun, ending someones life. Sign language started in the early 1600s, and through out history, it has been helping our armies, our deaf, and even our animals communicate. During World War II, the V sign made by our hand, now often used for a sign of peace, was used to signal allied troops and quickly turned into a phenomenon. This contraversial sign, from the pointing of two fingers, could signal life or death, in means of battle.This was one of the countless ways Sign Langauge was used in our past, and to this day, we are still discovering new ways to develop it. When I was eight I hadnt figured out the key to life, or even what color socks to choose in the morning, but through my great-grandmother, I learned the importance of our hands, and how they assist us in communicating, expressing emotion, and especially, feeling loved. When Nana was dying, and we were with her the last days of her life, I truly believe that through our touch and our presence, we gave her the strength to let go.

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Work Cited: Chillot, Rick. "The Power of Touch." Psychcology Today. Sussex Publishers, LLC, 11 Mar. 2013. Web. 22 Jan. 2014. Butterworth, Rob R. "American Sign Language History." American Sign Language History. The Berkley Publishing Group, 1995. Web. 21 Jan. 2014. DeBlois, Diane, and Robert D. Harris. "Morse Code V for Victory:Morale through the Mail in WWI." Postal Museum. N.p., 28 Sept. 2008. Web. 21 Jan. 2014