While swimming recently, I glanced ahead under the water at my rhythmic strokes and discovered my father's hand. I was sure I was using my own body parts to glide through the pool, but there it was — the left hand of my departed father and it was attached to end of my left arm. In just that glimpse under water, I recognized dad's gnarled and life-worn fingers, particularly his little finger, bent permanently when he slipped and put it through his mother-in-law's window one wintry day. My left hand's imperfections result from arthritis and a mishap it had with a soccer ball in fourth grade.Our hands are witness to our every unique experience and often the primary tool of many of them. But when hands are passed from parent to child, the uniqueness of their experiences are often comparable. So this is what dad experienced when he glanced at his hands under water! And what other experiences with our contorted hands do we have in common? And how many more miles do mine have to travel before I even begin to approach the history of his?Before their distortion, nearly the total existence of dad's hands involved manual labor — farming during an era without hydraulic machinery, automatic milking devices, or power saws and screwdrivers. The harsh life of farming in the 1920s and '30s left working men's hands distinctively, though proudly, worn. In dad's lifetime, they would be the same hands that lovingly caressed the soft, movie-star features of my mother's face. And always, throughout the severe and the sincere, my father's hands tiptoed through the countless pages of the countless books he read in his family's hayloft, hidden from the male relatives who disdained his passion for reading. If our hands could speak they would tell a complete tale of our lives. Father's hands spoke most loudly when they were tapping out literature on his Remington typewriter. I could never understand how such full (OK, gigantic!) fingers could land so precisely on each key without touching those nearby. But dad's hands did not perform solely as a synapse for words to pass from his brain to the written page. Many a curve ball spun from those large fingers toward his bat-wielding son. And in the day during growing season, dad's hands were wrapped around his decade's-old spade, holding it in place while his equally large boot forced the tool into the stubborn ground of the family garden. And when the grass wasn't green, dad shucked his winter gloves and set to struggling with his miniature tractor and its unwieldy frozen nuts and bolts while exchanging the sickle for the snowblower.Most memorable for anyone brave enough to attempt was shaking the six foot, nine inch man's oversized hands. Before extending your own hand to his, you were advised to review your life insurance, or at least the status of your medical policy. Dad's massive hand approached yours like the claw of an oversized backhoe. You trusted the operator, but stuff happens and there was always the chance of a malfunction somewhere. In that case, every finger for themselves! One's hand would be completely entrapped by dad's and if shaken long enough, emerge oxygen depleted. That's why people appeared to be enjoying his company — they were just happy to have survived the handshake!So, there before me is my hand, gliding effortlessly through its paces in the pool. My hands do not have the capacity to engulf yours, but I'd like to think they will often repeat the gentler motions of my father's — the passionate hugging of grandchildren, the considerate caressing of a never-opened new book, and the gentle cradling of newly-picked sweet grapes whose juice will soon imperceptibly stain the hands of a life well lived.