My Father’s Hands

My father expressed his love with his hands: a handshake, a hug, a pat on the back, and I was ashamed.

They were large, smooth, and warmest to touch. With a pat on my head, a squeeze on my shoulders, and on cold winter days, enveloping my hands in his to warm up, I knew my father loved me. But I didn’t want anyone to see them.

Do you know the intoxicating smell of ink? No, not pen ink, but the real stuff, the pails of densest black, seafaring blue, and Snow White’s, blood red. That’s what was imprinted on my father’s hand, embedded in every crevice, snaking every line: dried ink. Printer’s hands.

He’d wash his hands every day, scrub them really, with a brush course enough for your kitchen tiles, but the ink stained, blemished, tarnished and everyone thought they knew who my father was: a laborer.

They saw the back support belt when he carried the large shipments of paper into the store. They saw the dirty apron he wore, to protect his clothes. They smelled the high of the ink, and heard the clanging, suction, and rotations of the machines. And they saw his hands. Even on Shabbos, even by simchas, dressed in a Marcy’s suit, they saw his hands, his ink stained hands. And he was blue collar. And I was ashamed.

Two times a year they were pure, Succos and Pesach; he didn’t work on Chol Hamoed, so there was time for repeated washings without repeated contact. My father did those days, what his heart wanted the time to do every day, listen to a shiur, do a chessed, and really, love his family. I loved my father back those days. And I’d squeeze his hand in return; he was what I knew him to be: a ben Torah. For those moments, I was proud of him. I even took pictures of his clean hands.

Time has changed the printing process. Gone are the offset presses; everything is digital now. No more noise, plates, dark rooms, negatives, and no more ink. There are no more pails of ink, only drums and cartridges keeping my father safe from exposure. His hands are white these days. Clean, pure these days. Though I’ve grown older, and come to appreciate the stained ink, the dedication, the hard work, effort and sacrifice they represent; it’s still nice to hold my father’s hand today, hands that now reflect his heart.

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