My mother's hands are the flame theme of my destiny. Her hands, more than her face-not because it lacks beauty and grace-have often diverted my thoughts to loftier dreams! They are not of the beautiful and white variety with soft palms and tapering fingers but they are the steady hands-now rough and worn-symbolic of this pangs she had undergone for me, of the bitterness of life she had grappled just because she want me to be happy. Ah! those dear hands that have tenderly clasped me to her bosom when I was a little child, the hands that have devotedly brushed my feverish face, that gently rocked my crib, the hands that have dexterously dressed my wounded limbs, that have deftly darned and smoothened my dress, the untiring hands that toiled long and hard daily are now thin and veined with labor and with age. But each day that passes only endears them to me.
Each time when my heart seems to falter or grow wayward, my mother's hands appear to me in the dark as they used to be - calloused and folded in prayer for me. Mother is old but every night when I go to bed, I renew a silent wish I made to her years ago. "Mother dear, I shall grow and live that the labors shall not be futile, that I shall be what you had always dreamt me to be."