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 whites 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 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 that he couldn’t get rid of my question because his high school and

college diplomas are laminated and hanging on Grandma’s 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 good

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 starts to rock 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. She probably was embarrassed at 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, perhaps he reminisces 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

started to change 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

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 maybe 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.