Man Hands
The Power of Acceptance: Embracing My ‘Man Hands’
“Look at her hands.” My aunt bellowed to her daughter and others at the memorial site for her grandson. I wished to be anywhere but here. I hate my man hands and try to make them smaller. My body reacts by heating up. No one utters a word or glances at my hands.
I look around the room, a small storefront church on a Chicago street, permeated with the scent of an anti-bacterial solution. A life-sized photo of Vernon in his army uniform is placed at the church altar.
It is the summer of 2003 where progress is being made on the survival rates of AIDS victims. My aunt’s daughter, the mother of Vernon, assured us all that her son’s drug addiction was the root cause of his AIDS diagnosis.
Two years earlier at a family reunion on Rainbow Beach, I praised Vernon for getting his first girlfriend. She was at the event.
Vernon said, “You are right.”
I had no inkling he would break up with this woman before he discovered he had AIDS.
His mother later told me, “His ex was embarrassed to attend the memorial because she did not stand by him after he was hospitalized. Vernon said the break up was all his fault.”
She convinced her to attend and I see her at the back of the church with her head down.