A Woman's Hands

A woman’s hands,
finest tools may be,
To serve, to mold, to teach,
God’s humanity.
A woman’s heart,
Glowing warm within,
To care, to cheer, to love,
Whichever man may need.
A woman’s soul,
Radiant torch within,
To light the darkness,
To lift above today,
To light tomorrow,
To brighten up the way.
(January 2, 1945)

Judging by the way this poem is scribbled in pencil on the back of a tattered envelope, mom jotted it down quickly. She crossed through three words and blotted out four lines, but his is a good example of her clear sense of her own feminine identity and role in God’s eyes. That she few her hands as “tools” to shape God’s humanity, her heart as a source of warmth and nurturing, and her soul as a “torch” to light the way, gives three powerful positive images of her sense of who she is and what her purpose in life is. I don’t think she ever veered from this center point of her existence, for even on the day before she died, as Asako and I sat with her in the afternoon sun, in the rose garden of the Armenian home in Fresno, she looked up and saw a bird flying against the blue sky far above the eucalyptus trees waving in the wind and grabbed my hand. She fixed her eyes on mine and squeezed my hand tight in the way she did when she wanted to get your attention and teach you something. She was predictable that way. You knew she was in her “molding” mood. She then spoke of the bird as a messenger from God watching over her, as she had several times, saying the bird had followed her from our backyard at the Fedora Street home and perched often on the branches outside her window looking in on her. She lived this poem out, literally, her soul always radiating, lighting, lifting, brightening, never burdening or weighing heavy on anyone at anytime. This poem is her philosophy of life.