Folding Hands

With his emphysema progressing, my dad was tethered to an oxygen line hooked up to a tank in the laundry room. He’d always been so gregarious, but now he couldn’t get out much. I worried that he’d get lonely.

“Guess who’s coming for the day?” Dad asked when I came over to help him clean.

“Who?” I asked.

“Your niece, Kayla,” he said. “Your brother has so much to do and she needs company, so she’ll spend her days with me.”

My brother’s little girl was indeed as sweet as pumpkin pie, but she could be precocious. “Are you sure a three-year-old won’t be too much for you?”

“Nah. We’ll get along fine.”

The next week I watched as Kayla made an exaggerated point of stepping over Dad’s oxygen line. “Poppa says not to squish it,” she said. At that moment the buzzer rang on the dryer. “Poppa, clothes are ready.”

“Let’s go. I need a hand,” Dad said.

Kayla raced to the laundry room, then suddenly stopped. She lifted her arms out to the side. “I can’t help you today, Poppa, I didn’t bring my folding hands.”

Dad’s smile turned into a full-blown laugh. I don’t know who got more out of their time together—Dad or Kayla—but I knew it was just what the good Lord ordered.