She held my hand as she told me, her eyes sad half-moons, her lips still full and provocative.

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The monarch smiled and held my hand, recalling when I had lived in his country in happier times.

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As he held my hand in his own warm, hairy dry palm, I really was overwhelmed with a rush of lovelike symptoms.

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He held my hand and sat with me when I cried.

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While the Internet has held my hand through my adult life, my childhood was devoid of doodads (unless you count the portable Pac-Man console my brother and I used to fight over).

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In 2005, my friend Nichole held my hand as we sat through the memorial service and watched the cremation of my lover who died unexpectedly from a heart attack at the age of 36.

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And certainly not my grandfather himself, the smiling watchman of my earliest memories, the quiet, black-eyed, slender man who held my hand as we crossed the avenues, who sat on a park bench reading his Russian newspaper while I chased pigeons and harassed sugar ants with broken twigs.

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And my grandmother put her hand behind my neck and held it so she wouldn't break my neck by accident.

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When we were introduced, he shook my hand, and held on to it lingeringly, I thought.

NEWYORKER: Hand on the Shoulder

Goran took my hand off his mouth and held it.

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She held me by the hand and said, 'I've come to see what you did with my grandfather's book.

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