Nick Rizzo
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HANDS
Written for Duxbury Writers Society Open Mic Night
My wife Kiley used to always say that one of the most charming things about me is that when I would drink in college, I would high five strangers. I would just walk up and down the street in Cambridge, prompting people for high-fives in a raw display of unbridled optimism. And it wasn’t just the communion with people (although that was nice). There were no hugs, for example. It was just about the visceral collision of hands. The warmth and the violence of two arms in diametric destiny joining to create a familiar sound with an unfamiliar person. That was creation!
When Kiley got pregnant with our first, Gloria, I remember walking over these stone bridges in Munich with her, holding hands, looking down at the Isar River. One of Kiley’s hands in mine, and her other rubbing her belly instinctually. Kiley’s delivery of Gloria was one of those labors that grandmothers tell each other about at the florist or the grocery: told in whispers because of how long and arduous it was, but with a smile because everyone made it.
Our midwife turned to me a few hours into the labor and said: you know, by law, you are the only person outside of Kiley in this room who can touch your baby with your bare hands when she comes out. And so I delivered Gloria, clearing her shoulder, and then cradling her little back, and then her bum, and her tiny folded up legs, all hot and wet and completely alive. Kiley tearful, Gloria crying, I plopped Gloria onto Kiley’s chest and held her tiny hand while she magically found Kiley’s breast.
Years before, when I was 15, I sat in a funeral home with my mother, father, and younger brother, Elliot. My older brother, Jonathan, lay in a casket in front of us at Shepherd Funeral Home in Kingston. Closed casket though. His body has been in the woods for three days, my father whispered to me, imploring me to be sensible with my questions.
So when my father stood up to take Elliot to the bathroom, he turned to me and said, Nicholas. This was my call to manhood. Nicholas. Do not let your mother open that casket while I am gone. He walks out. My mother, nearly dead in spirit, whimpers to me: I am opening that casket. I need to hold his hand.
I refused her. I held her hand and told her that I couldn’t let her do that. This is something for which I’m not sure I have been forgiven. And now that I am a father, I am not sure I made the right call. I am not sure I’d let anyone stop me if I were in my mother’s position.
Years later, I went on to become a special operations medic in the military, and I always found myself holding hands with the guys I was treating. Tony Yusup. He fell 30ft climbing and broke his back, heels, and wrists. I juiced him up with Ketamine and Fentanyl, but he was still scared and asked me to hold his hand all the way to the hospital – and I was very happy to do it.