Today’s posy is for restless hands. Hands that once embroidered, sewed, knitted, baked. Soothed small children. Typed. Wrote. Created. And now they are restless.
Hands clasping and unclasping. Reaching for mine and leading me to the door. Beseeching. “Lets go home. We’ll leave a note. They won’t notice we’ve gone.”
We cannot go home. We are here for tests. She’s in hospital for the first time in her life. And I am mesmerised by the hands. Literally, the ringing of hands.
While I wait in a corridor, I look for “hand-wringing.” Noun. Cambridge Dictionary. “If you wring your hands, you show that you are worried or unhappy.”
Collins English Dictionary: “Expressing or showing feelings. When you are expressing sorrow that a situation is so bad, but are saying you are unable to change it.”
‘Hand-wringing: the repeated clasping and unclasping or squeezing of the hands as a symptom of distress. In the face of a dilemma or crisis.”
An example of use is given:” No amount of hand wringing can change the situation.”
Powerless. Great distress. Confusion. The words go round my head.
I hold those hands. And in my desperation to know what to do I supply all that I can think of to soothe and comfort. A small posy of herbs; rosemary and lavender for memory. Scented pelargonium tomentosum. Leaves as gentle as velvet. Sunflowers for joy. Calendula for healing. A tiny hand posy. A corsage for courage. There’s no need for armfuls of flowers. What’s needed right now is the small, the familiar. Something to hold. As I work the flowers back and forth, binding and sealing in moisture and life, my hands echo hers. Twisting and turning. Clasping. Unclasping. Until we are finally both still. Calm. Patient. Accepting. Still.
Bramble Garden 