White Palms, Pure Love

Uncle Gerry has white palms like the color of cotton. But his complexion is not pallid. Kids like me have white palms too. I mean, all of us have white palms until adolescence or until we get a crush on some pretty girls. By then our palms would become orange like the tangerine sky of twilight. My parents’ palms have been green like a virgin forest since my birth. They had been white before they got acquainted, turned orange in the first few months of father’s courtship with mother, and then turned red when they got engaged and eventually tied the knot.

I ask Uncle Gerry if there was a time when his palms were orange. He says, yes, of course, every person gets to a point in life when his heart would beat faster for someone. I guess that's true because I know a bunch of my classmates with orange palms. Most of them stuttered before their crushes on campus. I also see some with white palms like me in freshmen. We only care for our studies for the time being.

Uncle Gerry knows he couldn’t get rid of my question because Grandma laminated and hung his high school and college diploma on the wall. So, he answers by telling me about his crush in junior high. He dubbed her the town’s obsession with her breathtaking beauty. “She entered beauty pageants in town on fiestas and the search for Miss Campus in school and she always won,” he says. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get the chance to tell her what I felt, because her palms had changed into red. She got engaged to the son of a rich family in town after graduation.” Uncle Gerry gazes at the clouds as if imagining her irresistible smile and twinkling eyes. “She was the first girl to steal my heart.”

I believe in Uncle Gerry, but I know there was a second girl. I remember at dinner when father said to him, “When are you going to get married, Gerry?”

Uncle Gerry stopped chewing the palatable steak mother cooked. “I haven’t yet found someone.”

Father winked at mother. “We will set up a blind date for you, Gerry. What do you think?” Mother cast a smile that seemed to wait for concurrence. She had several friends and relatives in Leyte who must be compatible with Uncle Gerry.

But Uncle Gerry only said, “I will just wait for the right time.”

“When the crow turns white, and the heron turns black,” Father commented and they all laughed. When they stopped laughing, Father asked, “Are you still waiting for Lily to become a widow?”

Uncle Gerry shook his head, a frown of regret across his face.

“Did your palms turn red before?” I say, expecting that he would answer right away.

Uncle Gerry shows off his aged dimples and forehead wrinkles. He is above forty; I guess? He is Father’s younger sibling. The youngest is Aunt Carmen who has been a widow for five years and still has green palms. Uncle Gerry falls silent. He might have brought back wonderful memories with Lily.

“Did your palms turn red for Lily, Uncle Gerry?” I follow up.

“Oh, kid, yes, yes,” he answers clumsily, as if he has woken up from wet dreams.

“Will you tell me when? And why are your palms white now?”

“You’re just a kid and you won’t understand.”

“Pretty please with a cherry on top,” I beg.

“Okay,” he says and rocks the rocking chair on Grandma’s porch. “I was at university when I met Lily. We were really in love. We talked about our plans for getting married after graduation. Two months before graduation, I noticed she would always tuck her hands in her pockets whenever we were together. It probably embarrassed her why they had changed into white. I instantly knew that she no longer had an affection for me. She didn’t love me anymore. She wanted to keep the promise, but it wouldn’t make sense to me. My palms were still warm and red, like fresh blood. They still bore the love I had for her. But I had to let her go.” There’s a moment of silence. Maybe he was reminiscing about the best memories.

I remember Father mentioned to Mother that Uncle Gerry has onion skin. I think of him bursting into tears, so I forward our topic. “After that, your palms turned back to white?”

He brushes a single tear in the eye. “They didn’t appear white right away. They had changed after a year when I worked in the municipal hall.” he opens his palms and stares at them. “These were scarlet red and salmon red, and then almost pink, and after a few months became pale pink. And then, they settled into dirty white. By that time, I almost forgot about Lily. I mean, the love I felt for her.”

“Did her palms turn red again?”

“I think so. I haven’t seen her for ages, but I learned from my batch mates that she’d got married twice and got divorced. Her palms turned back to white.” Uncle Gerry looks across the street to a family walking and entering the house. He looks back at me. “I like it that my palms are white like yours. Do you know that white is a symbol of pure love?”

I nodded, although I haven’t heard of it before.

“My palms have been white and will still be white till I go to heaven. That is because I purely love you and your father and Carmen.” He messes up my hair the way he does when poking fun at me. “Yours are white too because your love for your parents is pure.” He looks into my eyes. “I think palm colors don’t really matter as long as you truly love someone. Right?”

“Yeah, Uncle Gerry.”

Uncle Gerry is right, it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that we love one another no matter the color of our palms.