Hands are, one could say, the most interesting part of the body.

They hold things and people. It’s your sense of touch. That lingering trace of a ghostly finger trailing upon skin, the scratch of nails upon the fabric of the body, the cool rush of water over the palms or the gentle rub of fingers against one another. Feelings and sensations that cascade over them and stay as a tender reminder of being awake and alive.

Hands are as identifiable as faces, possibly more so. Some may be clumsy, with knobby knuckles and chewed fingernails. Others are large and warm, a dusting of dark hairs running over the backs. There are pale hands that are milky white and slender. Those ones might have longer fingernails sloping gracefully downward…or maybe not. Some hands are nearly skeletal, thinned with age. Turn them over and you might see the pale pulse of blue veins running cobwebs across their wrists. Then there are young hands; small and layered with baby fat. Whenever they clench they may curl around your finger and be reluctant to release it. Dark skinned hands. Scarred hands. Fat hands. Dead hands.

They are useful of course. They pick things up. They make things move. With them you can punch and grab and push and pull. With them you can feel.

But that’s not what makes them beautiful.

Some may argue that hands are just hands. They may say they’re not nearly as interesting as eyes, or noses, or lips, tongues or feet. They may say that one can live without them. They may say that hands are boring.

They may say lots of things, but they aren’t right.

When you find yourself in a position where somebody you love is falling away. They’re within reach, clinging desperately onto things, drowning in empty space as the world gives out beneath them and everything slows down and they’re beginning to sink into oblivion and all you need to do is extend you arms and unfurl your fingers and face out your palms and reach out-

Then tell me you don’t need your hands.

On a cold winter day you’re wearing gloves. You’re walking awkwardly next to your boyfriend of five years. Five long years of walking through the same park with the same man, holding the same hand. You’re walking next to him and you’re cold and suddenly he tells you that he’s been thinking and he’s been waiting for this moment. He gets down on one knee and tells you all sorts of beautiful, gorgeous things. He says he wants to spend his whole life with you and pulls out a small black box. He asks you to marry him and you say yes, of course, yes!

And the world falls away in that perfect moment when he slips off your glove and slides that ring onto your finger. One of the happiest moments of your life is now glittering on your hand. It’s so cold and you want to put your glove back on but you can’t because you don’t want to conceal your joy with the knitted warmth.

Then tell me you don’t need your hands.

Maybe they aren’t there to be beautiful. We ruin them with hard work and build knotted calluses up on them. We dip them in greasy food. We dig in the dirt and mud. We wipe tears with them.

But they aren’t there to be beautiful.

When you’re falling with the wind rushing backwards through your hair and the pit of your stomach is dropping out and all your thinking, all you can think is I’m going to die…

You’re going to reach out and grab the nearest hand.