Essays and Writings
Fading Scar
I can remember seeing it the first time. I cried. I hated it. I hated me. I looked at that scar -- red, inflamed, angry -- and the anger welled up inside me. Ruined. So much, ruined. My body, my faith, my fond memories -- all ruined. That scar, that cut, was a slap on my face.
It had taken me a while, actually, to look at it. This foreign, alien thing that was so rudely intimate with me now. How dare it! But it wasn't foreign at all. It was mine. For always. That's what a scar is, isn't it? Permanent. Indelible. Haunting. With forever to make its acquaintance, a few days or a few weeks of ignoring it wouldn't matter. When the day finally, grudgingly came, looking at it stung as much as the initial cut. This pain, like this scar, will be with me, always, I thought.
Four years later, in so many ways, the pain is still there. Time heals all wounds, they say. Yes, the wound is healed, and the pain isn't so sharp. I certainly don't think about it every day, but there are moments, every once in a while, when it all washes over me, once again. The fond memories that are tainted, the shared stories that ring hollow, and the intimate, uncomfortable entwinement of my daughter's birth and so much pain -- are all illustrated, literally, by that scar.
And, yet, that scar? That angry, red scar has faded. It's almost gone. Somehow, that scar has failed to live up to its name. One day, I fear, I might not even be able to see it. And for a million different reasons, I mourn the slow, but inevitable, loss of that scar.
In the years since that day when that scar first made its mark on my body and my life, I've come to live with that scar, not as an intruder, but as an unexpected companion. And as I watch it slowly fade, I'm struck with sadness at the prospect of losing that companion. Because, as much as that scar is a marker of pain, it also marks a journey. That journey includes my coming to understand childbirth with a more holistic, less medicalized vision than is standard for our culture today, but that is only a small, and ultimately, insignificant part of that journey. I'm certainly not looking for a badge of honor, to wear proudly and arrogantly. I'm all too aware, in fact, of how that scar affects how others perceive my beliefs. Yes, I have a passion now, buoyed by my experience -- but sometimes that passion rings less true to others because of that experience. She's blinded by that scar, they say. I don't need or want my scar to mark that passion.
What that scar on my body ultimately marks is a journey of soul-searching, courage, humility, introspection and love -- one that transcends the births of both of my children, and one that continues, even today. It marks a journey in which pain has been both my bitter enemy and then my comfortable companion. My scar marks a journey without a map, one in which I had to take leap of faith after leap of faith -- after I had no faith left. It marks a journey in which I was my own hero, able to understand myself, enough, to act, not with selfish, arrogant bravado, but with true, self-actualizing love. The journey that the scar marks continues today, every day. That scar, then, is a part of me, part of who I am, part of my experience and my beliefs. I don't want to lose that scar any more than I want to lose grasp of those beliefs.
Today, as I look upon the pale marker of the cut, it's hard to believe that it has only been four years. What will it be in five, eight, fifteen, fifty years? Will it have faded away from my body and my consciousness forever? Time heals all wounds, they say. Uncomfortable truth. If this scar fades away, I hope the mark on my soul remains forever.