Real Moms Have Scars

It starts when we are children: little wounds and infractions that are pressed into our hearts, our minds. There are things we swear we'll protect our own children from; things we swear we'll never say, never do.

Our bodies carry the scrapes and bruises of our past: scratches, cuts, burns, lines of scar tissue light against our darker flesh. Flying too high off the swing set, boiling water accidentally spilled on a tender thigh, a fall off a bike, and a knee opened by the rough, unforgiving asphalt. We are marked, all of us, somehow.

Pain. It's something that knows no boundary, no class or race, no religion. Pain crosses every division, both real and imagined. Pain, physical and emotional, touches us all.

Who doesn't have words lodged in their heart like a splinter, long and jagged? Who doesn't have a catalog of griefs, of losses, of hurts? Who hasn't received an open palm across the face, the sting of contact sharp and instant? Who hasn't been mistreated, left, cheated upon?

And who hasn't dished out a heap of hurts? A cruel prank, childhood taunts, a lie, deceptions. There is scar tissue on our hearts, and on the hearts of others, bearing names, healed into a likeness, the lines and bumps and sinewy scabs telling stories.

******

Our children enter our lives, urged out through our bodies. Sometimes they come out in as gentle a manner as childbirth can be. Most of the time, though, their very growing leaves marks, skin stretched to accommodate the being inside. In their leaving, too, they leave marks - a perineum torn or cut to let out the bulging, soft head, the slippery shoulders.


And when they can't come out, they are pulled. Two scars, two lines, one for each of my children, intercepted before it was too late. Those intercessions, those merciful scalpels, dragged across my skin, parting the flesh, parting the waters. I both love and hate my scars. Love because those were the doors from which I received my children, each baby round and pink and yelling. It was their entrance to me. Hate them because they signify my inability to birth my children on my own terms, and because they itch and occasionally jolt me with shadow pains, little nerves still objecting to their severing. Love because when I am old, I will be able to look down at my body and touch the scar, sending out thoughts of peace and fierce affection to my children no matter where they are. Hate because it signifies helplessness, the very opposite of empowerment.

******

My daughter skinned her knee the other day, during a walk in the formerly mild Northeast weather. Under her tights, her skin had been scraped, as if someone had tried to sand her flesh with coarse paper like it was wood. There was blood, but just barely at the surface, just peeking out to say hi. We cleaned it and bandaged it and she was good as new, wounded and stung but happy to have something new to show her classmates.

Each time one of my children gets hurt, a little part of me gets wounded too. It is my sincere hope that scraped knees and bumped heads will be the worst they experience, but my own knowledge tells me this is not to be. But this is also what I think about scars: they help us to grow, and in turn, make us stronger. So maybe my wish for them should be that they only experience the kind of wounds that ultimately enrich us, make us kinder and more compassionate, make us better people after a bout of hardship.

And I wish, too, that they let me carry a little bit of their pain, if I can, so that their scars may be the kind that almost vanish with time, leaving just the slightest flash of silver against peach. The smallest mark possible.

(This post was my first meme, inspired by Kristen. I was tagged by the lovely Amanda. And I would do the thing one is supposed to do when tagged, which is to tag others, but I'm still getting known here on the blogosphere, and I'm not sure if I tagged anyone, they'd know who the heck I am, so pardon my meme transgression. )