Fingerprints

Back in the, uh, dark ages, before DNA evidence was a thing, fingerprints were a common piece of evidence tying a person to a crime.  That's because they are unique to each person and were commonly left behind when the perpetrator was long-gone.  Moreover, while it is of course possible for a person to commit a crime and not leave fingerprints behind by using gloves or wiping the scene down, it is considerably more difficult to create fake fingerprints on a scene, thereby potentially wrongly convicting someone of a crime.  Let me make a disclaimer here.  I'm not an expert in fingerprinting, so everything I just said may be wrong.  Feel free to call me out for incorrect information in the comments. I can take it.

I think it's a rite of passage for children to make a set of handprints in preschool that include this little poem:

Sometimes you get discouraged,

because I am so small

And leave my little fingerprints

On furniture and walls.

But everyday I'm growing

And soon will be so tall

That all these little fingerprints

Will be difficult to recall.

So here's a little handprint

That you can put away

Not my child's actual handprint.

...or some version of that.  It's very cute.  And yes, I'm fairly certain we have the requisite handprints for both of our children in a keepsake box that they will one day open and wonder why we kept them.  Or maybe by that time they will have children and will understand completely.

And it's true that kids' handprints get all over.  One of my friends, Mark, once wrote that for all the years between birth and about 7 or 8 years old it seemed like there was a sticky film coating everything in the house.  It covers roughly the same years you always have a bottle of pink medicine in the fridge because your child just started it, just finished it, or needs a refill of it.  Sometimes when I look at picture of my children when they were younger I remember how cute and sweet they were.  When I think about the pink medicine (or worse, the white medicine that followed if the pink medicine didn't work), I feel like maybe we were lucky to get through it in one piece.  My children have left literal sticky fingerprints all over us, our house, our vehicles, and presumably every other place they've ever been, is what I'm saying.  And I don't think we are alone.  Kids all over are like:

Ready for a new day!

But there are other sorts of fingerprints.  More subtle and more durable by far.  They last long after last bottle of pink medicine has been thrown away and sticky fingers are wiped off before accessing the refrigerator (full disclosure: this doesn't always happen even now).  These are fingerprints on the heart and soul.  They're left by smiles and joy and tears and anger.  And they aren't limited to children.

We bear the fingerprints of every relationship. Each person we encounter leaves us somehow marked--for better or worse (actually most of the time better and worse if we really think about it).  In the classic nature vs. nurture debate, all these fingerprints are on the nurture side even if they don't always feel especially nurturing.

Of course some people leave more fingerprints on us than others.  Those who are closest to us leave well more than fingerprints.  They can shape everything about us from how we look to how we speak to how we exist in the world!  How many times have I said something to my children and realized it may as well have been my parents talking?  The truth is it probably was my parents talking.

And that's when it gets really scary.  Fingerprints are a two-way street.  Just as surely as people leave their prints on us, so we leave our prints on those we meet every day.  Every. Person.  Fingerprints of happiness, perhaps, or anger...or maybe for more than we'd like to admit, fingerprints of indifference (maybe the most painful of all fingerprints, I think).

The profound power of our fingerprints is frightening, yes.  And yet in their power is opportunity as well.  Just as easily as we can mark others with our indifference, so can we also mark them with our care.  As easily as we mark them with malice, so can we mark them with benevolence and kindness and release.

Maybe not just as easily, I don't guess.  Sometimes it runs counter to human nature to uplift those around us.  Or is it counter to human nurture?  Maybe we would do well to look ourselves over and consider carefully the fingerprints on us.  Who left them?  How have they influenced us?  Which fingerprints will we carefully--or even painfully--wipe away from who we are?  Is that even possible?  Fingerprints don't wash easily, but washing away the right fingerprints can be the most important act of self-care we will ever undertake.

A close second may be paying attention to those around us to see what kind of fingerprints we are leaving on others.  For me that is a mixed bag.  I can see the ways I have acted harshly or reacted in ways I'm not proud of.  I can see the ways I've ignored too many people, especially during a pandemic when checking in is so important.  But I can also see, now and then, fingerprints I'm proud of.  In fact, it was one such set of prints that led me to write this post.

In the end, these fingerprints on the heart and soul, just like those Holmes and Watson might find, are evidence.  The ones left on us are evidence of where we have been, and the ones we leave on others are evidence of the kind of people we are.  And, for better or worse, the fingerprints do not lie.