Friday, December 4, 2009

The Scars That We Bear...

I have always been fascinated by scars. Strange as this may sound, I was always convinced that anyone with an impressive-looking scar must therefore have an impressive story to tell about how they got it. I always felt that people with scars had LIVED, they had taken risks and gone on wild adventures and lived to tell the tale. Perhaps it was because my own skin did not scar so easily that I was fascinated by this phenomenon.  The very few scars that my skin has managed to bear are, in a very weird way, badges of pride for me because I envy people with really impressive scars and my own scars are reminders of important things that happened in my life.

My god sister came as a blessing and a miracle during my teenage years. We were unsure she would survive to full term and though she was born prematurely, she was indeed a little fighter. As a result of her early arrival, she was placed in an incubator where subsequently a number of medical mistakes caused her to lose her vision in one eye, as well as a drip being left in her arm for too long causing an intravenous burn, creating a considerable scar from her left wrist to her elbow. Nevertheless, she pulled through and I was so proud to be her god sister that I carried her picture on my folder at school and told everyone about the adorable little baby adorning the cover.

Some years ago, when she was at the tender age of four or five, when we were sitting in the car on our way to the movies, I commented that the scar on her arm was looking as if it was fading or getting smaller. She then replied:

“Yes, that’s my scar. I don’t like it because it makes me ugly.”

It broke my heart to hear such a young child say something so awful about themselves that I couldn’t think of what to say. Thinking of how that scar symbolized her fight to survive, in the end I settled for:

“Don’t say that, scars are beautiful! Your scar means that you have a really interesting story to tell everybody when they ask you what it is! I’m sure there’s no one in your class who has a scar like yours or a story like yours… Your scar makes you so special and it’s there to remind you of how special you are…”

She looked at me with her big, innocent eyes and asked me:

“Well, if you like scars so much and they are so special, where’s your scar?”

The question caught me off guard and got me thinking. Where was my scar? Then it dawned on me that my skin was my scar and my skin was my story. Maybe to the rest of the world they could not see a scar in the traditional sense, but the visible part that the world encountered upon meeting me was not as it originally had been. And if I was trying to convince this young, impressionable child that her scar was one of the most beautiful things about her, then I should accept that my scar was one of the most beautiful things about me.

And it is true. For those of us whose skin is changing, or is different to how it was when we were born, we have to see these scars as stories to share with the world about how special we truly are and what we have survived. Scars are amazing, they set us apart from each other and show that we are still human – we still cut, we still bleed, we still hurt… and we still heal. And when we heal, we share our story which can help someone else to heal or feel better about their own scars. Telling my god sister how beautiful both she and her scar were that day helped me to accept my own in some small way. < Having a scar means that you lived to tell the tale. Having a scar means that you survived the fall, you survived the ordeal and you survived the injury that led to you having that scar in the first place. Having a scar to talk about means that you are still alive to talk about it. And for that, scars are beautiful…

Happy birthday to my miracle god sister… Without even knowing it, you opened my eyes with a few simple words.

1 comment:

  1. Hey Darcel,

    This reminds me of the sorts of conversations I have with my nephews and nieces, because my scars are very visible. One of my latest scars, made about 18 months ago was one which my 4 year old nephew (Zoe's boy) was fascinated by. He saw me in hospital after the operation and (this particular scar was not as visible as some) he insisted that I keep it exposed while he was there. For months after he would lift my top every time he saw me, see the scar and ask "when will it go,Claire?" He still does it now and then and I wonder why. All his life he has seen scarring on me, and hasn't really asked about it. But this particular scar bothered him and he is dissapointed when he sees it is still there. I think that he sees the scar and thinks that it is still causing me pain, that it troubles him as a signifier of my fallibility and potential frailty. So my scar, for him is also a type of scar for him because he takes it on and incorporates it into the knowledge he is builiding of the world, that some hurts never dissapear but they flatten and fade and leave traces of their presence. When I first had my transplant I dressed to cover my scars until Eve said, as you have here, that I should be proud of them because they stand as testament to the trials I have overcome in life. Differences in people are what make them beautiful, it would be a bland and impoverished world if we were each carbon copys of one another. And Darcel,I have always thought of you as beautiful, I only knew you for a short time but you were then a gorgeous, intelligent and vivacious girl and I love having the privelege of seeing these glimpses of the young lady that still bears all these qualities.Love from, Claire.

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