Is it possible to define a person by a simple gesture?

When I think of my father, the image that returns most clearly is not a photograph or a memory of words spoken. It is the quiet moment when he reached into the pocket of his work shirt for his tobacco pouch.

His hands, like those of anyone whose livelihood depends entirely on what those hands can grasp, were reminiscent of roots freshly pulled from the soil—rough, dark, and mottled.

The knuckles were large and twisted like knots in an old board. Even as a boy, I often wondered how those swollen, abused fingers could move at all.

Yet move they did.

He would tap the pocket of his work shirt, locate the pouch, and with a delicacy that seemed almost impossible for hands so battered, roll a perfect smoke...

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