Handprints

 

Clap-slap, clap-slap. The rhythm of hands slapping against my newly polished picture windows grated on my nerves. It hadn’t been too bad when my two teenage daughters had perfected their moves on the kitchen table. There it was only noise. But multiple hand prints on windows that had taken considerable effort to get clean was annoying.

When my glare didn’t dissuade their enthusiasm I handed them window cleaner and rags with instructions to “make it as clean as it was,” knowing it would likely be full of streaks afterwards.

As I walked away, my mind drifted back to another hand print on another glass surface. This one by the elder teenager now pounding on the windows. Except she was three years old.

I had just finished buttoning up her favorite dress. I lifted her onto the vanity to brush out her blonde curls and then add her favorite finishing touch – clear lip gloss and a pair of children’s stick-on earrings. Without of a trace of self-consciousness, she turned to admire herself in the mirror placing one hand squarely on the mirror for balance. Satisfied with her look and after kissing my cheek, she ran to show Daddy how beautiful she was.

This was what I had waited over 13 years for. This is what had kept me going through numerous infertility tests, surgeries and disappointments. Though she was adopted, she was every bit mine and I savored all the experiences I had so longed for. That small handprint was a tangible sign that I was finally and truly a mother. I left it on the mirror for weeks cleaning around it, smiling every time I looked at it.

I turned back to see my two daughters wiping off the last of their handprints on the windows. Neither could look in the mirror now and believe they were beautiful. They were often at odds with each other and even more often with me. I had shut down the joy of hand-clapping, window-slapping. laughter-bringing rhythmic percussion. What had happened to the seeming unbounded gratitude over finally achieving motherhood?

I walked back over to my daughters and took the rags and window cleaner out of their hands. Then I turned and said, “Show me how to do it”. And I left the three sets of handprints on the window for the rest of the week.