It was the first week of the first grade —the first days of school for me with no prior preschool or kindergarten. We started by drawing straight and slanted lines to prepare our hand muscles and finger joints to draw real letters.
A few weeks passed… My parents realized that there was something awkward going on with me. They seemed quite disappointed to see that I was using my left hand for writing. I didn’t know that this was such a big deal until I saw my mom at school a few days later, talking to my teacher to help me switch. There was no pushback from my teacher, but she did not seem pleased with the ask. She asked me to use my right hand for the next few days and asked my mom to come back for an assessment. The left hand won, and I stayed “cursed,” according to common belief back then. The left-handedness gene is from my mother. She was forced and able to switch to the right hand for some everyday tasks but remained lefty for others — cutting with scissors was one of the few.
My older son needed help with a craft project over the weekend. He was having a hard time cutting out the template on paper. He is a lefty too, and he is not particularly good at navigating scissors. It got worse when he needed the identical cut on a rough fabric. We certainly needed a better pair of scissors.
My mom passed away less than six months ago. On my way back from Ankara, I looked for a personal item from mom to bring back. A thing that she touched, used, and liked. A right size item that I can bring in my luggage. I looked around and picked up her scissors. A well-built, sharp, and sturdy pair of scissors with shiny orange handles. My favorite color. I am not sure how much mom used them, but I was certain that she also had a hard time navigating them with her left hand. Like many other household items, they are manufactured for the right-handed majority.
I used mom’s scissors long enough for my son’s project that I ended up with a minor blister and numbness on my left thumb. All day today, I walked around with a sore, tingling left thumb. The pain was there with me — not hurting or disturbing.
I don’t want the sore on my left thumb to fade or disappear.
