Nana is my grandmother, my dad's mother, Nancy Noll. My dad was the second of her five children, all boys. Nana's fingers change directions at each joint. They make zigzags from their bases to their tips. We make jokes about Nana's fingers, about how when she points to something, you can't tell which direction the finger is supposed to be pointing. I wonder, though, about how Nana's fingers became this way. Was it from cracking her knuckles too often, like I've done every day since the second grade? Was it from working for decades at the Wolfgang candy factory? Was it from turning five little boys, including one set of twins, into men? Will my fingers be like Nana's?

There are some things Nana cannot do with her hands; there are things that her hands have forgotten how to do. She cannot braid or even brush my sister's hair. Attempts to do so result in tangles, ripping, and tears at the corners of eyes. That she fell out of practice with long hair like my sister's during years of taking sons to Boy Scout meetings and wrestling matches. After so many years of throwing baseballs, straightening neckties, and preparing hunting trophies for dinner, her hands have forgotten what a woman's hands should be doing. She's handled and pocketed so many snakes, snails, and puppy dog tails that she forgot what sugar, spice, and everything nice should feel like.

Nana has a mother's hands, and more recently, a grandmother's hands. There are many things that her wonderful hands, with wondrous, telling, jagged bends at abrupt, unnatural angles, will never forget to do. Nana's hands, for almost 50 years, have changed diapers, spanked bottoms, given candy and written birthday cards. Nana's hands, for almost 50 years, have brought and kept the Noll family together and involved with one another. It's Nana's remarkable hands that write letters, dial phone numbers, prepare crab or pork dinners, make beds, and fluff pillows for family get-togethers that always turn into memorable events with photographs, water gun fights, wiffleball games, measurements of grandchildren that grow incredible amounts in one year and more food than a person should ever eat. Nana's hands play cards, wrap presents, serve drinks, and take pictures, becoming more crooked year after year.

There are things Nana's hands are still learning to do. They've made new acquaintances, like the keyboard and the mouse. They're still learning to become adept with a golf club, even after years of retirement. They write notes and send cards to her five grandchildren in college, including one set of twins.

I think it's fitting, in a very special way, that Nana's hands look differently than mine or my mother's or my father's. Nana's hands look different because her hands are different.

Nana's hands have a soul-one you can see when any of her fives sons or her 13 grandchildren take a look at themselves and wonder about how they became the man, woman, boy or girl that they are, realizing just how much Nana's hands, through a friendly note, a pat on the back or a sharp smack on the rear molded them into the person they see in the mirror.

Nana's hands, her fingers, look like they've been run over by a car. Nanas hands are beautiful.