“Squishy Hand”

When I was 4 years old, I had a lawn mower accident.  I was playing hide and seek with my siblings and for some reason, I hid under a big pine tree.  I’m not sure exactly how it all happened or what was going through my head while under that tree, but my mom went around the tree on the riding lawn mower and my hand was unfortunately run over. I lost all but one of my fingers on my right hand. As a woman of faith, I’ve questioned this experience many times throughout my life. “What was God trying to tell me through this experience?” “Why me?” “Why did He put my mom through this?” I’ve gotten angry at God for making me physically different. I still panic slightly when I shake anyone’s hand because if I don’t angle just right, it’s awkward and draws attention to my “difference”.  And although I’ve come to terms with being comfortable with being physically different and understanding how powerful that can be in connecting with people, my youngest child has helped me heal more and know that this was all part of my journey to help be connected to her.

As part of the surgeries that followed my accident, one was a skin graft from my stomach. The skin graft area on my hand to this day is “squishy”.  In some cool sciencey way, if I gain weight, this part of my hand also can gain weight, even though it’s not actually on my stomach anymore. This part of my hand has always tanned deeper and matched the skin tone of my stomach in summer. But most importantly for this story, it has stayed squishy.  I’ve resented this surgery multiple times. The skin graft area on my stomach is a large scar. My belly button actually moved to the right side of my stomach for quite a while and eventually came back to almost center, but will never be a perfectly round shape.  I was constantly envious during my teenage years of anyone who could get a bellybutton ring because my stomach was not beautiful enough in my mind to show off, let alone bedazzle.  I’ve healed mentally over the years to know my body is beautiful just as it is, scars and all, but the final healing medicine came in the form of my beautiful daughter Ella. 

Ella nursed for the first 2 whole years of her life. I thought we would be done after 1 year as I was with my first, but Ella strongly insisted we keep going, so we did. As she weaned, she found new ways to connect with me. One of them was my “squishy hand”.  Her favorite hand placement while nursing was my armpit. After she no longer was curling up on me in a position to nurse, she didn’t know where to put her hands it seemed like. My armpit had been some sort of comfort and security.  Then one day as we were snuggling before bed, she put her hand on mine and it stayed there. I still remember it because there was this instant calming on her end and my eyes filled with tears in the sweetness of it all.  She was finding comfort in something that had given me discomfort for years.  Now when she goes to sleep, is hurt, just wants to connect, she asks for “squishy hand” or her hand just subconsciously finds her way to it.  When I wake her up in the morning and she still is half asleep, eyes closed, her hand immediately searches for mine like an elephant trunk searching the ground for direction. My “squishy hand” is her comfort and it’s her special way of knowing it’s me next to her. 

Our kids have ways of healing wounds we didn’t even know existed.  My accident happened 32 years ago. I didn’t know why that needed to be a part of my journey, but I’m starting to see more and more that it wasn’t about making my me suffer or learn early on how to adapt and embrace challenges, but instead it was so I could teach  others to know that even if someone’s difference makes you uncomfortable, it could be the comfort to someone else. And so that my daughter and I could have a connection that is uniquely our own.