Trophies of Living
There’s a line from Romeo and Juliet where Romeo utters, “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.” (Act 2, scene 2). The line matters because it’s the first serious comment Romeo makes. Everything up to this point is teenage male foolishness (if that’s not redundant). All of a sudden, Mr. Lonely Hearts turns into armchair Socrates. Only people who have truly suffered understand pain, he’s saying. Sort of ridiculous because Romeo has never really suffered, but he thinks he has. Ah, teenagers…
Maybe you don’t share my nerdy love of Willy Shakes, but bear with me. Our boy Romeo is on to something.
Everybody has them. Scars, I mean. On my right hand is reminder of fifth grade. I was playing tackle football at school (completely verboten by the nuns, but guys gotta play). I went to tackle Vince Scarfo and his glasses gouged my right hand. Barely visible now as my skin wrinkles and ages, the crescent shape takes me back to the playground at St. Anthony’s. Yes, I made the tackle, and yes, we won that day. I knew you were wondering.
I love my scars. They don’t define me, but they remind me. My left wrist has a one inch reminder. Third grade, I had a large, unsightly ganglion. It was large and hideous. Today, the removal of a cyst would likely be an outpatient procedure. Not then. I spent the night in the hospital at Castle Air Force Base, sharing a room with a another young dude.
I have two vivid memories of my time. One, he got a big box of chocolates and didn’t share a single one. True story. Not a single piece. Bad parenting, say I. The other is I received a packet of cards my class made for me. I still have them somewhere. Folded sheets of paper, colored and tagged with simple messages of healing. Pictures of flowers and sunlight and kids playing kickball, drawn with great care in Crayola splendor.
My right eyebrow has a gap in the middle. Mostly imperceptible now, it falls short of Phantom of the Opera. Age 19, I’m playing sandlot baseball. My buddy Alan hits a deep fly to left. I’m running back, glove outstretched to the sky. Suddenly, I recall the chain link fence. Hmmm, I think. I wonder where the fence is? As soon as I turn my head to check, well, it was right there. My face hit the bar and my eyebrow hit the chain. Bloody mess, I was. Off the Castle AFB Hospital. And, no, I didn’t catch that one.
My right foot sports a long jagged scar, courtesy of a strip of metal protruding from a piece of furniture. There are two dots on my left leg where I had a biopsy in 1991; doctors couldn’t figure out the source of a vast lower body rash (it was a reaction to ampicillin). A small circle on my left forearm where Lanny Witt snared me with a #6 fishing hook. He was practicing casting, and I got too close. Lesson learned.
I could go on, but I’m pretty sure you’ve had more than enough of my physical road map. If we were together, we could compare, like Gibson and Russo do in Lethal Weapon 3. Classic scene.
My dad used to say a kid who never got hurt outside wasn’t really living. Scraped knees and scabby elbows, trophies of childhood. We get hurt, we get scars. Starts when we’re young and continues for the rest of our days.
I’m not going to argue that scars are inherently beautiful. But I love that I have a body that records a random assortment of my exploits. The scars are not Hurl’s greatest hits, the best moments from my 64 years. They are tangible reminders of who I was and what I did. I’m fortunate to have lived long enough to accrue my flaws.
There’s likely something to be said for those scars that are invisible to those around us. I won’t opine too deeply in those waters. I’ll simply say my memories, good and not so good, I wouldn’t trade them either. I have no desire to awaken each day with a blank slate in my brain. 50 First Dates is a clever concept, but it sounds like a hellish existence. Nope, I’ll take the whole enchilada, the mixed bag of plus and minus.
The poster boy for teen angst is correct. Romeo is mostly a love-struck fool until the middle of Act 2. Then, Boom! He drops a pearl in our laps. Those who have suffered are more compassionate, more empathetic. They understand pain. The scars, inside and out, those are simply proofs of what we have gone through. I’m not sure there’s any other way to gain that compassion.
Hurls, what are you telling me? Listen to dopey teenagers? Read more of Willy Shakes? Spend more time at the dermatologist? I’ll leave the applications and ruminations up to you. If you’ve read this far, you’re no doubt a pretty smart cookie.
Hey, have I told you about my hernia scars?
Thanks for reading!
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I remember the first time you showed me all of your scars and told me the story behind each one. I only had the one scar, so I thought that was pretty cool! Now I have many more scars and the majority of them are invisible. I agree that each scar makes us more compassionate towards those who are hurting! As someone who is hurting now, it’s far more meaningful to hear from someone else who has survived a car accident than to hear from those who have not. Romeo got that one right!
Romeo didn’t get much right, especially the ending, but that one he nailed. We’ve chatted often about those who get it, whether it’s accidents, surgeries, or funerals. Experience is the best teacher. God was wise to allow us to carry those scars.
Can’t top your scar stories but my vasectomy was quite memorable.
Great memories you have there, each one with a great tail. Bravo.
A vasectomy scar? That sounds like a story all in itself. I could see a lot of one-liners from that one. I bet my dad would have a field day. Thanks for reading–hope all is well.
Enjoyed this post lots Mike.
As a therapist and a purveyor of woundedness (emotional scars) I appreciated the insights.
Back in the 90’s I had mental health volunteers and staff who themselves experienced serious mental illness (yea, we thought alcohol and drug programs hired former addicts, why not us?). They experienced hospitalizations, psychosis, and debilitating depression. It was not well received in some programs with ‘normies’; but what the peer staff taught us professional staff was that no one understood our clients or could gain rapport with them more than people who had been there themselves. They related to the scars and fellow patients knew they weren’t alone. Good stuff.
Thks bro
One of the reasons I like to write is when the words elicit a response, a story like the one you just shared. It’s the stories! Like Murray opined in to Lee Harvey in Stripes, “When you stole that cow…” Btw, not the same Lee Harvey as we saw at the Oswald Museum. But yeah, it’s the stories. And, of course, the scars.