Hand holding a chain

A hand reaching down from the clouds and holding a chain, often with one link broken or hanging from a finger, means the death was God's doing: the hand lifts the soul out of the family chain. Some guides read it as Christ breaking the chains of death.

Other readings stress a loss in the family or a marriage ended by death, and one adds sudden death, with God choosing the soul. The hand from the clouds is the hand of God.