Your Great Grandpa Ken took you up in his monolithic hands. Semi trucker hands that had clocked tens of thousands of miles over American highways. Horse farmer hands that had maintained a modest stable of healthy saddle horses. Harvesting hands that had baled tons of forest mosses, shucked Pacific coast clams on ranger-scoured beaches, carved Chantrelle mushrooms from under evergreen canopies, and pulled pinching Dungeness from barnacle-encrusted crab pots.
But those hands that had fought in the Second World War, that had repaired log-loaded barges for Southern Oregon Marine, and those hands that once had to pry a shotgun from his wife's grip...those same hands gave up the moment you started crying. He handed you back to your mom, put his big hands in the air, said, "I didn't do it," then decided not to take you back. Great grandpa is a man that's fought on the wrong side of enough battles to know now that he can pick his fights. And if you being in someone else's arms makes you happy, then that makes him happy.
