Her hands

She was looking at her fingers.

I was zeroed in on my laptop with my own fingers flying over the keys typing an e-mail when I glanced over at my mom sitting next to me on the couch. Her hands. She stretched her fingers out turning them over and back again and again periodically wincing at both the pain and sight. She looked at me and said softly in Korean, “They look strange, don’t they?”

Mild arthritis has started to bend her fingers with joints and knuckles swollen and angled in unnatural ways. And looking at them I felt my heart soften towards her. A rare moment.