The Scars of Life

by Just_Lin

Living a life is messy business and no one gets out unmarked. Our scars tell a story. They are like little vignettes of our lives. The other day my eyes settled on a slightly curved scar that I have over the joint where my right thumb connects to my hand. It's not a very noticeable scar but what's unusual about it is that it is really a double scar, one placed precisely over the other and caused by duplicate incidents that happened several years apart. In both cases, I was washing a glass and as I pushed a sponge down into the glass, swirling in a clockwise motion, the glass broke, slicing my thumb open. Did you know that when you part the skin over your thumb it looks just like chicken bones in there?

Another scar on my right hand is equally subtle. It is about 1 1/2 inches long and is the result of a cat scratch. When I make a fist and make the skin taut across the top of my hand, I can run my other hand over the scar and it feels just like a thin string is sitting right under my skin. Considering the dozens of feral kittens I caught and domesticated over the years, it's surprising that I don't have more "cat" scars.

The oldest scar I have I can't see anymore because my thighs are no longer exposed to the sun (or the public) and I can only see it when I am tan. It is located on my right thigh and is a human bite mark. It happened when I was a young girl and a neighbor girl, only 3 or 4 at the time, bit me, for unknown reasons. I will never forget Cindy Lesh, the little twit.

Two of my scars were caused by surgeries. I had emergency surgery in '96 for a perforated ulcer and peritonitis (major infection in the abdominal cavity). I have never been in so much pain in my life and the situation was life threatening. As a result of that surgery, I have a scar that begins on my chest right at the bottom edge of my bra and runs through my belly button and about three inches farther down. It's about one inch wide and definitely indicates that something formidable happened there. Eight months later I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and they slit my throat, literally, and removed my thyroid gland. It was really unsatisfactory when I woke up in the middle of the surgery and began pushing everyone's hands away because they were making my neck hurt like a mofo. Boy, was I pissed, too!

It's not noticeable, except to me, but everyday when I put on my makeup, I come to an area in my left eyebrow where the hair doesn't grow right. That's because there is a small scar there where my first husband hit me in the face with a baby bottle. I was holding the baby at the time. That's only a little, insignificant scar. It's the invisible scars he left that are the worst.