PROOF OF LIFE

Sometimes you have to touch and feel the scars to really appreciate someone. Even those whose scars are invisible but deep. - LP

I run my finger over the hard tissue. It is rough, scaled, and a deep dark purple. My grandmother pulls her sock down and tells me to look at it. She has a current injury on top of an old horrific scar. And she asks me to look at it. So I gently run my fingers over it. And my eyes take in the heavily damaged tissue, the blood vessels pushing up against the surface,  the discoloration, and the ache that I know lies deep under the skin that she rubs from time to time. I touch the healed flesh, and I look at her. I do not feel sorry for her. Not even close. Not because I don't care, but because I do.

My mind drifts away briefly, and I see the car she was driving, the truck she doesn't see, the intersection, and for a moment I see the truck slam into her from the side, pushing her far up into the pasture. I picture her head slamming against the window. Another injury that will linger decades from that day forward. I see the jet black hair plastered to her face and her foot pinned under crushed metal as she waits on help to arrive. I see it all in an instant. And I know she does not need my sympathy. She needs me to know how strong she is. She needs me to remember who she used to be. So I touch her scar. And I look at her face. And I think about how much I love her. This woman who survived so much. This scar is not just part of her life's road map. To me, it is proof of life.

Scars fascinate me. Visible ones. Hidden ones. The ones that distort the tissue and the body, and the ones that distort the heart and the mind. I am fascinated with the way the body is at times so easily damaged, and as well, the times it can withstand incredible pain and suffering and keep going. I am equally fascinated with the way we can become so highly irritated, short circuited, or easily set aflame by even the most mundane and ordinary things and in the same respect - how numb we become to pain and circumstances in an effort to protect ourselves.

An incoming message pops up.... Michael. An unexpected friend by unexpected means. He has something to share with me. And if he is willing to share, then I will be the best audience I can be and give him my undivided attention. He is talking to me about scars. It is so real and honest that I do not yet know what to do with it.

So I think on it. And I process it. And then I sit on it.

Weeks later, I reach out to my friends and ask them about their own scars, not sure what to expect, Michael's words still clear in my head.  I get several responses immediately. Many physical scars, evident to anyone who looks closely. Some life threatening, some not. Surgeries, falls, mishaps. Rappelling accidents, fireworks, and more.  But I take a closer look at the responses and the authors. I know them all. I know the history of many. And I read between the lines.

Still so much unspoken. Still so much to be said. Still so much they cannot talk about, yet.

I read through them carefully, thinking about what they chose to say and what they chose not to say. And soon, private messages start coming in. It took a little time. As though people needed to think on it, to make a decision on whether or not they wanted to show me the scars and the pieces of themselves. I read through the messages. Taking each one carefully, as though they are breakable, cherishing the trust that came with each one. Knowing I would never exploit them, betray them, or simplify the feelings that came with them.

I go back to Michael's message... “It was a fire call, on a night so cold that the water was freezing in the lines,,, and a night so cold that our bodies were numb. And on that night, a live ember flew in the top of my boot, burned through my suit, and burned my skin. But my body was so numb with cold that I was unaware of the injury until later, back at the firehouse and changing clothes. Only then did I realize what had happened.”

Those words hit me hard and deep. But I continue reading...

“Later on, my son asks me about the scar on my leg one night. I explain the details so he can understand. Later that night I crawl into bed myself and as with most people I start to think about my day. I quickly come to the questions my son had asked and what I had pondered on earlier. I feel the pain in my back, another injury from earlier in my career. So I adjust in the bed to ease it as much as I can. Another type of invisible scar I think to myself. One no one else sees but is a constant reminder. I relax and wait for sleep to come, but as many other nights it doesn’t come very quickly or easily. Caused by more scars. Scars hidden deep inside. Scars no one will ever see but me.”

I keep reading...... thinking about these things Michael said. I think about all the things that hurt us and scar us, but we don't realize until later, sometimes much later, what they have done to us.

a fire call by a family friend.... her daughter was inside a burning house.... or so they thought.

a car accident that could have been avoided,,, the death of two men by another who fell asleep at the wheel

pulling families from wrecked cars and finding families in burned homes

It takes me awhile to process all of this. Weeks, actually.

That is when I reach out to my friends, and I ask them to share with me as well.

"Tell me about your scars", I ask them.

And they do. They share them with me.

"surgery", "minor household accidents", "car wrecks"

but also,,,

"Falsely accused by some people I really trusted. Emotionally scarred that pushed me from being an extrovert to an introvert."

"childhood abuse"

"my mother's own traumatic childhood that she never resolved and carried over into our lives"

"abuse by the hands of my husband, made worse because we couldn't have children"

"my brother died in a house fire, for years I couldn't even look at a fire without seeing his face" .

I look through the messages... knowing that many, many of these friends of mine have buried children. Some survived Vietnam. Some were deeply betrayed. Some are still grieving, some are barely coping.

Some are healing, some quickly, others slowly.

Some changing from open wounds to healing scars, disfigurements, discolorations, changing them on the inside as much as one changes on the outside.

Some of them becoming more sensitive to life, more compassionate, more aware of pain, in themselves and in others, and still some becoming completely numb.

Some of them becoming stronger, resilient, more aware that whatever hurt them is behind them. Some of them more determined than ever to move on.

Some of them tattooing the memories on their skin. Permanent reminders and promises.

Some of them covering up the evidence.

I could spend days retelling these stories and experiences. They are so numerous.  I could replay the hurt, bring it to the surface and expose it. I could spend days discussing the hurts, the wounds, the stories of life, the stories of death, the things we have all overcome and barely survived. I could talk about the close calls, the car wrecks, the buried children, the hurt, the abuse and more. So much more. 

Proof that they lived.

But as I sit and read through the cherished thoughts people shared with me, I realized something more.  People cope with their hurt differently, in their own way and their own time. In the way they can process it and heal from it.  Weeks, months,,,, years and decades. And it is a process that changes as the wound heals. The way we cope with it, changing. The way it changes us, infinite. The way it redraws our life's road map as unique as our own fingerprints.

Many of them wanted to share it though. And each day I would receive another private message from someone who had to think on it a little longer. It was like they handed me the story, uncovering the scar, exposing the hurt to fresh air. Like they placed it in my palm, something fragile and breakable. And they told me "Do with it what you will."  An act of trust I do not take lightly.

I think about the way some people treat my Grandmother. As though she is broken. But they don't know what we know. They don't know that you have to really see her. You have to look beyond what you think about her and see her. You have to know what she endured to understand her. You have to know the head injury to appreciate how remarkable her memory can be. And you have to understand the injury to understand why pieces of the memory completely disappear at times.

I could tell you so much more. But to see inside her mind you have to read the road map and see what brought her to where she is today. It is a beautiful Proof of Life.

I think about my friends who shared such private thoughts with me. Some of them knowing that they don't have to tell me the details, they know that I know.  I think about their character, their life, the lives they are still creating and cultivating. I think about the circumstances that brought them where they are. And I know they don't need my sympathy and they don't expect my sympathy. 

They expect me to recognize their strength, their courage, their fortitude. They expect me to look at them and really see them, with all the changes and the hurts and the wounds and the scars.

Allowing the healing to change them when necessary.

They expect me to see how much stronger they are, even in different ways.

To see the scars, touch the scars, feel the scars,,,,, and see their life.