My Father’s Hands: Writing, Collaging, Commemorating

Practicing what I preach, I thought it might be cool to share a minimally edited excerpt of one of my creative writing journal exercises of 2005 with you and reveal how some of its iconography and memories manifested itself in a visual journal page I created in 2010. That April day the writing prompt dictated I write about hands… any hands, really…

April 8, 2005, My Father’s Hands

(Written in 20 minutes while sitting at my desk listening to a religious-inspired internet radio station.)

They were medium sized. But they always seemed a lot bigger with fingers thicker than mine. Hands that had the well worn look of time: deep brown and hairy on the outside and pale pinky beige on the palms. Well manicured nails; always kept short. Sometimes I’d see him biting them, but not often. I remember he had a thick gold custom-made ring with his initials VFS: Vincent Florian Serrao on his wedding ring finger. It was a handsome ring; elegantly crafted. I think it had been specially designed for him because I’ve never seen anything like it before. It had a kind of Art Deco feel to it. The “V”, the “F” and the “S” were intertwined and they rippled out of the centre of a rounded square face. It was beautiful and I was mesmerized by it. Later, when my mother would need some extra gold, she would melt that ring down. She replaced it with a cheaper watered down version which looked like so many other monogrammed rings you find nowadays: a dark, ebony-like squarish centre with his initials carved into it and inlaid in gold; not as striking as its first incarnation. I was saddened mom had done that. That was when dad had cancer and mom was visiting relatives in England; he was too exhausted to complain about what she’d done. Those were the days when they had fallen out of love. Wish I’d known what she was going to do with it. I’d have put a stop to it. After he died my mother gave that precious ring to one of my sisters. Why, I don’t know. Although my sister was close to my father when she was little, when he lay sick and dying she was too afraid to approach him; they grew apart. The day he died, my mother never even called her to tell her he was at death’s door. The last time I saw dad I was holding his hand for the entire afternoon and evening as he lay dying. I didn’t know if he could hear me or see me, all I knew was that I wanted to communicate my closeness to him by holding his hand. His hands were cold; I tried to warm them with my own. He didn’t hold on tightly. He drifted off often. Those hands… I was informed later, had knitted clothes for me as a baby. They even sewed clothes for me. They had patted me to sleep on the nights when I was most afraid that the devil and the darkness would spirit me away. For seasons: spring and summer flowers blossomed delighting in their touch. With them, elegant functional furniture was conceived and crafted for our home for many years. Those hands taught me how to knit with precision. They showed me how to make an expert chickpea salad – chop the onions fine, little dash of oil, vinegar and lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste and a pinch chili powder to give it some zip. Never forgot that recipe. Although those hands threatened to beat me when I was wicked, they never had the heart to carry it through. The one thing I really wish I’d seen those hands do though was play music. Those hands that once: tickled the ivories; caressed the strings of the violin; exhaled the notes of a clarinet and played drums like his idol Gene Krupa. I wish I was witness to my father’s days playing with his band in Rawalpindi. I wish I could hear the sound of the music that was produced by those sacred, passionate and loving hands…

A photo of Dad and his band. He's the drummer (centre). This photo was probably taken in the late 1950's or early 1960s at the Rawalpindi Military Club in Pakistan.

Text for Journal Page (see top of page):

“Holding your hand as you lie in bed; the unbearable wait for morphine; I watch as two nurses ignore your pain. Your frail body holding on to life with all its strength hoping to beat the cancer that consumes all our lives.”

(Please note that this piece was created in Kelly’s Kilmer’s “A Life by Hand” on-line course which I highly recommend.)

So there you have it… perhaps now you know a bit why my dad’s spirit haunts me so. I’ve done many works in different mediums based on his memory: collage, mixed media, digital collage and multi-media. I’ve gathered a thousand pages of oral history about my father’s life from his friends and relatives. My fascination with him never ends… my art helps me keep his memory alive…

Other Related Links:
Life through the Arts: Surviving the Impossible Dream