Blue Handprints

There are so many parts in the book "These is My Words" by Nancy Turner that I can relate to. Just recently these following passages have become more personal.

Sarah Agnes Prine writes: "While I have been doctoring, April has become an artist. She got into the blueing bottle and fingerpainted the white pine floor in the parlor and made little smears and lines and handprints everywhere. I was too tired to be mad at her and too drained to fuss. I just picked her up and took off her dress and underwear and washed her up and dressed her again.....It looks like my parlor will have little blue handprints forever to remember this day, and April thinks her blue fingers are fancy." (p. 136-137)

Then later she says: "From where the rocker sits I can see out the window to the road if anyone is coming by, and I can see little blue fingers on the wall and floor. Some folks would scrub and bleach them out, but I think I will have only one baby, and she is bigger now already, so those tiny hands will always remind me of how precious and tiny she looked." (p. 154)

Now I have my very own blue handprints on the walkway leading to my front door and I'm trying to embrace Sarah's attitude. I know that someday when we move, one of the things I'll miss about this house are the little blue handprints.