A Father’s Hands

Several years ago, I drove to Afton, Wyoming with my father, his wife, and two sisters to attend the funeral of my uncle who was a successful rancher his entire life.  He was 95 years old when he passed away, he lived an honorable and productive life, and he was healthy for most of his life. This was a tribute to his hard work, which was a character trait of this great man.  During the funeral his son described his dad’s hands as rough, snarled, and callused by a lifetime of hard farm work. 


While my cousin was speaking, I was sitting with another uncle who was in his eighties and has been a dairy farmer all his life. I glanced at his hands, and they were also chapped, cracked, and dry from milking thousands of cows over his lifetime. In addition to milking those cows his hands also mowed, hauled, and stacked thousands of tons of hay well before modern technology and machinery was available. They also planted and harvested thousands of acres of grain. I have always admired this uncle and as I looked at his hands a second time, I noticed those big hands tenderly holding the hand of his sweetheart of over 50 years.


I turned my head to the right, and I noticed the hands of my father, the cowboy barber, who left the farm in his 20’s and over the next 65 years cut more than an estimated 100,000 heads of hair. I looked closely at his hands I saw the hands roughened and callused by his days of working the farm had disappeared and hands conducive to cutting hair replaced them. 


As I thought about these three men, whom I love and respect, I realized that there are many commonalities between each of them. Each of them was born and raised on farms where they learned and applied the knowledge of what they gained from their experiences on the farm. These men learned the importance of working until the job was done.  They learned to appreciate their animals, to treat them with care, and to adapt to their needs when they were sick or hurt. From their fathers they learned firmness, responsibility, gentleness, and kindness. From their mothers they learned to use their hands for service in their families and communities.


All three men depended on their hands to apply the lessons they learned from their mothers and fathers. They used their hands to earn a living and to raise and support their families. Like their parents before them, these men used the skills they were taught to strengthen their children and give them hope for the future. 
What a blessing to have hands that set an example of hard work, love, tenderness, service, and appreciation.