I have a scar on my face, under my right cheek bone. Not very large, maybe an inch long. I never notice it because I’ve never seen my face without it.
I was about five years old when I pulled my little wagon several blocks from my house to ride down a long, steep hill. Just as I pushed off, my friend Tommy jumped on behind me—and we ran off the sidewalk into a rusty barbed-wire fence.
Something sharp poked my face and I screamed. Tommy ran away and I held the skirt of my dress up against my cheek. By the time I walked home, the green and white plaid was soaked with red. My mother cried and called my father to ask if she should take me to the hospital. “A band aid will probably do the job,” he said.
The scar was not disfiguring but my mother apologized the rest of my life for not having taken me to get stitches. “It’s okay, Mom,” I said. “It’s who I am.”
Scars don’t go away. That’s why they’re called scars. Some are physical, others emotional. Visible or invisible. Regardless, we collect a lot of them in a lifetime—evidence that we’ve been hurt. Also that we’ve healed.