Scars

Somewhere around 3AM on Tuesday I remembered something my Grandmother used to say, “Scars are proof of two things- either your own stupidity or good fortune.”

Got the big guy up and out of bed because he was having horrible hot flashes and sweating bullets, and man can I sympathize with that! Anyway, getting him wiped down and into a clean gown I thought about the roadmap of his life that brother dear’s scars represent.

There’s that big one that extends from well above his right ear and snakes down into his neck. I remember the first time I saw it after he came home from having a total neck dissection, an angry ugly thing at the time, that has mellowed through the years. I remember how self conscious he was, being a teenager at the time. Good fortune indeed, that tumor would have killed most people, he was actually in a medical paper somewhere in academia way back then because it was a radical surgery for his type of cancer at the time. Lucky scar indeed.

I see the one at the base of his neck from his disc surgery a few years back. Stupidity for constant abuse of his body and refusing to admit it and slow down.

The large one to the right of his new accessory, that’s where they removed another tumor a decade or so ago that proved to be benign. Good fortune.

The one on the left side of his thick skull? Slipped on a rock fly fishing alone somewhere in BFE and managed to hike his bleeding, dazed ass back to the road and flag down help. Well, we’ll call that a win for both sides I suppose.

His hands and arms, faint scars too numerous to count. Years spent at the forge with an anvil and hammer will give you a lot of burn marks. I see those hands and realize those huge, strong scarred appendages can take a piece of iron and fashion it into something beautiful- a perfect dogwood blossom, a rose, a bouquet of calla lilies. It has always rather amazed me the artistic talent that can take a raw block of iron and make something of such beauty out of it. Or do something more practical and make a pair of corrective shoes for a horse that’s hurting.. “No hoof, no horse” after all. Good fortune.

Thought about my own a bit. The big one on the heel of my right hand where I sliced myself royally one year after Christmas, de-boning a leftover ham for bean soup . Chalk one up for stupidity. Wash the knife stupid!!!

The good sized burn mark on my right forearm- acquired while checking a standing rib roast at the precise moment the Hurricane was playing lets chase the dogs through the kitchen and the big dog collided with me and knocked me forward into the oven rack. Good fortune, a second or two later and I’d have been totally bent over and it would have been my face.

The little half moon scar under my left shoulder blade- yeah chalk that one up to stupid and 20.. Haven’t touched tequila since that night , and we’ll leave it at that.

Those few random stretch marks.. In moments of vanity I consider them bad luck. But they are the best of good fortune. Two very difficult pregnancies, two babies with different, but equally dire issues in infancy that are now healthy people. With any luck they’ll be viable humans with a sense of responsibility and a purpose in life.

Grandma was right.. look at your scars and remember how lucky you really are folks, or how fortunate you were to have survived your own stupidity.