Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love (34 page)

Epilogue

T
here are times, when the house is sleeping, when I remember the smell of my father’s body. It is a mixture of many odors, a brisk hint of Old Spice blended with his mug shaving soap, Vitalis, and the sharp odor of the Lava soap he used every night with a stiff brush to clean off the printer’s grime that had accumulated under his nails and in the creases of his strong hands.

As a boy, I would sit on the closed toilet seat and watch in fascination as my father scoured his hands until they were pink and fresh.

“My voice is in my hands,” he said. “Dirty hands do not speak clearly and with beauty. My hands must be clean, must always be clean.”

My father would carefully dry his hands, one strong finger at a time, and then would look down at me with a soft look in his eyes. And his eloquent hands would come to life shaping the air with his perfect love for me.

While I remember, my hands awaken and, independent of me, begin to talk to my father. And as the mists of memory part, I clearly see the hands of my father signing back to me.

M
any years after the death of my father, when I had the passing thought that I could be an artist, I was studying a book on how to draw the human figure. In the introduction the author extolled the human form as a thing of beauty and infinite complexity, celebrated throughout history by poets and lovers, analyzed and dissected by doctors and architects.

The book then proceeded apace, from a study of The Eyes, The Ears, The Nose, The Mouth, and from there downward.

Eventually, I turned a page, and there was: The Hands.

Displayed on the following pages were marvelous, deceptively simple, pencil line drawings of the human hand in motion.

The accompanying description of the topic began with the sentence “Hands speak a rich language.”

Unbidden, my eyes filmed over, and I put down my pencil, and cried.

About the Author

MYRON UHLBERG
is the critically acclaimed and award-winning author of a number of children’s books. He lives with his wife in Santa Monica and Palm Springs, California.

Also by Myron Uhlberg

For Children

F
LYING OVER
B
ROOKLYN

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M
C
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RAW

L
EMUEL THE
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T
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D
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HANDS OF MY FATHER

A Bantam Book / February 2009

Published by Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2008 by Myron Uhlberg

Bantam Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Uhlberg, Myron.

Hands of my father: a hearing boy, his deaf parents, and the language of love / Myron Uhlberg.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-0-553-90627-1

1. Uhlberg, Myron. 2. Children of deaf parents—United States—Biography. 3. Deaf parents—United States—Biography. 4. Deaf—Family relationships—United States—Case studies. I. Title.

HQ759.912U45 2009

306.874092—dc22

[B] 2008025628

www.bantamdell.com

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