The hands, they are always there.

You never think how you will remember someone’s hand so well; when they are there. There, beside you, or there, somewhere in the world. I never thought I would remember my mom’s hands so well. I never thought one day, when I finally feel that I can go to sleep, half-sleep, I would scratch my palm and I would see more clearly than anything I saw that day, blurred by tears, my mom’s hands. As she scratches her palm with the nails so perfectly shaped that looked like powdered manicured ones, Even after years of chemo. Seeing her slim small fingers and her little palm that led to a swollen arm because of damaged lymph nodes. See the light of her living room that, I always hated how dimmed it was, on her hands. And I never thought I would hear her so perfectly in my head, saying something so painfully mundane. hearing she say, half hopeful and half feeling guilty for believing or even joking about believing such things, that:” my hand itches, guess a lot of money is waiting for us.” *
I should have known that. I should have known. When, in fact I always could remember the angle which her hair curled when she braided it. Even though it was twenty years since she had been shaving her head every two months in the hope of her hair becoming strong enough between medicines to grow back. As long, and black and curled.
but I never thought I had to decide half-sleep, if I believe that her hand is six feet underground lying motionless or that she is somewhere in this world, or any other, scratching her palm saying with laughter in her eyes: “my hand itches, guess a lot of money is waiting for us.”

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• in Iranian culture, itchy palms means that a significant amount of money awaits you.