Family Hands

Last Sunday we got in the car and we drove

To the town you were raised in, your boyhood home

The trees were just turning, up on the ridge

And this was your valley when you were a kid

You showed me the railroad that your daddy worked on

As we neared the old house where your granny lives on

She's nearing ninety years now, with her daughters by her side

Who tend the places in the heart where loneliness can hide

Chorus: Raised by the women who are stronger than you know

A patchwork quilt of memory only women could have sewn

The threads were stitched by family hands, protected from the moth

By your mother...and her mother, the weavers of your cloth

Your grandmother owned a gun in 1932

When times were bad just everywhere, you said she used it too

And the life and times of everyone are traced inside their palms

Her skin may be so weathered, but her grip is still so strong

And I see your eyes belong to her and too your mama too

A slice of Virginia sky, the clearest shade of blue

Chorus:

And a rich man you might never be, they'd love you just the same

They've handed down so much to you besides your Christian name

And the spoken word won't heal you like the laying on of hands

Belonging to the ones who raised you to a man

Chorus: