The scar through my eyebrow is from losing my focus and depth perception when I was only in kindergarten causing me to walk into a piece of equipment on the school playground. I remember vividly feeling my mother holding my hand ― my 8 1/2 month pregnant mother held my hand and cried deeply for me. Although the emergency room doctors thought she might, she did not give birth that day, but I got my first pair of glasses.
The scar on my chin is from splitting it open three separate times in one summer on the same rock, over the same handlebars, of the same bike ― what is the definition of insanity again? Oh, yes, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results… interesting. My youngest son has his own story to tell about the scar on his chin ― ask around, there is a whole club of us. When my son was getting his chin “glued” closed, five of the seven adults in the room had a scar on their chin.
The tiny patch of stretch marks on the lower right side of my abdomen is where all three of my sons rested their heads while they grew inside me; it will be a reminder long after my sons are grown and gone and have families of their own, that there were once three babies whose lives I was blessed to have begin inside me.
The scar on my toe, well that one I do not remember, but I am sure it remembers its story and it is a part of me just as much as the others.
The lines that grow and deepen around my eyes each carry the stories of the deep joys and deep sorrows of my life. These lines even carry stories that I have forgotten. There are the times when I have laughed so hard that I could not breath and my stomach muscles hurt so much that even the next day I could feel a gentle soreness that would bring a smile. They also carry the stories of the times I have cried from such deep sadness that I thought I would never recover from the loss I was grieving at the time. These lines are the evidence of the times, the places, the people and the events, especially the ones I have forgotten, that have touched my soul. I have earned them, I treasure them and I would never dream of erasing them.
I have three large scars on three different parts of my body that together tell the same story of how I am alive today. I have worn them pretty much my entire life; to me, they are beautiful.They remind me that for a very large portion of one day in my life I was only alive because of machines. And they remind me that I am only alive today because of the skillful hands of someone I don’t even remember… but I bet my mother does.
My knee hurts and cramps up sometimes, especially when it rains, from the damage of years of playing sports. With this body, scars, flaws and all; I played, enjoyed, and still do ― not just sports ― but life.
January 10th, 2012 at 11:22 am
[...] I didn’t need was surgery… Thank God, I’m a baby about cutting my body open… been there, done that… a [...]