Scars
From a young age, I was told that I possessed a knack
for penning words onto paper. I must admit that I have always enjoyed writing
and expressing my emotions through the written word. Perhaps that is why I went
on to obtain both B.A. and M.A. degrees in English Literature and did a stint
of teaching on the collegiate level. But like anything else in life, our gifts
and skills will quickly become rusty with lack of use. Over the past two years,
I have had so many thoughts; thoughts that I both wanted and needed to share, and
I have had so many opportunities to pen those thoughts down on paper. Sometimes
I did, but most of the time I didn’t. For reasons that I can’t explain, I have failed
to write on a regular basis. As a result of this, both my personal blog and my
contributions to the Samson blog have been gravely neglected.
Last year, during the height of Covid, I decided that
I wanted to start riding a bicycle again so that I could join my young son in
riding around our neighborhood. Of course, as was the case with so many other
things, there was a nationwide bicycle shortage during the middle of the
pandemic in 2020. Although we did eventually find a bicycle for my wife to
ride, I could not locate a single men’s bicycle in the style or the size that I
wanted. There were simply no bicycles to be found anywhere. About that time, I
recalled that I had a derelict old Huffy hybrid bicycle left over from my
college days; it had been resting dormant in the corner of my shop for many
years. Through the years, my wife had often suggested that I should just get
rid of the bike; indeed, she could not understand why I was holding on to a dusty
vestige from my college days. But you know, the bike had (and still has) great
sentimental value to me as I had taken it with me during my two years in Arizona
and had ridden it all through the Grand Canyon National Park. So, I hauled the
bike out of the shop and took it to Bicycle Revolution in Gluckstadt where I
promptly proceeded to fork over nearly as much to overhaul the old wreck as I
would have paid for a brand-new low-end bicycle. Getting back on that bike was
like reuniting with a familiar friend; our reunion was a little rusty at first,
a little wobbly, and we were both a little uncertain of what to do with each
other for the first few moments. However, I quickly got up to speed and soon it
was like we had never been apart.
Or perhaps, rediscovering my love for writing will be more along the lines of opening a door or a window that has not been opened for many years. You know, when you first open that door or maybe the window, it will most likely refuse to open all the way might even make a terrible racket while trying to be persuaded. But the more you open it and close it (and maybe apply a little oil to it), it becomes smoother and easier to operate. This blog post is a “quasi-attempt” of sorts to re-launch my writing. A re-oiling of a squeaky and rusty mind if you will.
Fall has always been my most favorite time of the
year. I can most likely attribute this love of autumn to the fact that I started
my very first revolution around the sun on September 1, (I was born a Labor Day
baby many moons ago) and I was destined to be welcomed into the open arms of
fall. In any case, the arrival of my birth month always fills me with eager longing
for what I consider to be the most magical time of the year. As the blazing
summer sun slowly loses its brutal radiance and begins to give way to the
cooler autumnal wind, my soul instinctively begins to enter into a more
reflective season of life.
I have had, for many years now, the great privilege of
working for a small, private university. From an aesthetical standpoint, I
would argue that the campus possesses a timeless beauty carefully honed by the
generations of people who have lovingly cared for it; in any case, it just
feels like home after being here for so many years. I often enjoy slipping away
on my afternoon break or during the latter part of my lunchtime, and simply taking
a leisurely stroll around the campus. I am a natural-born people watcher, and I
love to observe people. Although I am not a shopper and I have not been to an
indoor mall in ages, I used to love to go with my family and just sit on the
bench in the middle of the mall and watch people pass by while my family shopped.
I love to watch the interactions between people and imagine who they are and
what they are in life. Similarly, I will sometimes simply sit down on the bench
in the middle of campus and observe the students rushing to class, oblivious to
anything or anyone around them. Sometimes
when the students aren’t so rushed, I enjoy watching their interactions with
one another as they pass by. Occasionally, I will take note of the lone
individual lost in their own ruminations while taking a lonely, singular stroll.
As the air begins to get crisper and the trees begin
to shed their leaves, I observe the piles of red and gold leaves that scatter
the landscape. In my head, the late, great Eva Cassidy’s voice begins to sing
as I think of my favorite song sung by her – Autumn Leaves. “The autumn
leaves drift by my window, the falling leaves of red and gold...”
Absentmindedly, I stop to pick up one of the leaves
and I slowly rub it between my fingers, noting the beautiful texture somewhat mottled
by spots of brown. I stop to pick up another one. Curiously, I hold them
side-by-side and observe that they are both unique and quite different from
each other. No two leaves are ever alike. Just like humans, the leaves have
tiny veins that give them life, and these veins create a web pattern that is intricately
designed and belongs only to that leaf.
As I hold the leaves in the palm of my hand, my
attention turns to my skin, which having completed its 40th orbit
around the sun some time ago, is starting to look less youthful than it once
did. Subconsciously, I stroke the scar on the palm of my left hand. It is a tiny
and nearly invisible mark born of a brief run-in with a box blade knife while on
the job during my years in Arizona. I remember that day, having to get stitches
in that hand because the gash was quite deep and painful. I remember that even
worse than having to get stitches was the humiliation of being required to take
a drug test because the accident happened while at work. Of course, it goes
without saying, that I was able to pass the drug test (as I always have) with
flying colors. No, the scar was a result of my own stupidity and carelessness
and not the result of some drug-induced stupor.
As my gaze moves up from my palm to my left forearm, I
note the faint, yet still, visible scar marring my skin. Fondly, I think back to
a childhood puppy, who in a moment of overexuberant puppy playfulness, got a tad
bit rough with the nips from her sharp puppy teeth and broke the young, tender
skin on my seven or eight-year-old body. As I look around on my arms and my
hands, I realized that there are other, smallish scars that are barely visible,
but nonetheless still there. I can’t even recall how I got most of them. Some
of them, like that scar on the palm of my hand, bear testimony to more
significant events in my life. Other smaller scars, however, don’t have any
significant event associated with them. Yet they still tell the story of a well-lived life.
As I continue my walk, I think about other scars on my
body. These scars are hidden for the most part and are less outwardly prominent.
They are hidden. That doesn’t mean the events associated with them were any less
painful. Hidden or not, they still tell a part of my story. Reflexively, my
hand begins to gently stroke my abdomen as I think about the 7-inch scar that
runs from the lower part of my chest to below my navel. I recall the day that
it happened. I think about how even though God saved my life at that point, the
extremely painful months that followed made me wish he hadn’t. In fact, I still
suffer from issues to this day related to the emergency surgery that caused
that scar. I am not ashamed of that scar; I will unabashedly take my shirt off
when I go swimming with my son in the summertime. If anyone ever notices, they
certainly don’t ask me about it, but I would never hesitate to talk about it if
they were to ask.
For some reason, a certain percentage of the male
population seems to think that scars are really cool. I am not included in that
percentage. I remember that upon my arrival back at work two weeks after my
emergency surgery, one particularly outspoken and bold male student worker (who
was a good guy nonetheless) asked me “so, Mr. Coleman, do you have a scar?” I
responded with “Yes, Tyler, I have a very large scar.” Tyler then proceeded to let
me know that my having a scar was “so cool” and that “chicks [apparently]
really dig scars!” Even though Mr. Coleman did not think it was “cool” at the
time, I politely smiled and told him “I’m glad you think so, Tyler! For the
record, I am married, and my wife doesn’t really dig it!” Fortunately, Tyler
did not ask me to show him the scar in question, as that would not have been
appropriate in a professional work environment!
Other scars are metaphorical in nature; these are
scars that live deep within our psyche or deep within the confines of our
hearts. I never really stopped to think about how each of us has emotional
scars, but it’s so true. Even if one has lived the most incredibly perfect
life, I would daresay that each person has at least one thing that is scaring
them below the surface. I never really gave much thought about that in my own
life, but those scars are there, nonetheless. They were just so glossed over
that I had almost forgotten that they existed. The last six or seven years in
Samson have taught me to be more introspective and to carefully examine myself
deep down into corners that I would much rather forget about. All this
introspection has re-exposed wounds that the scars had covered up for so many
years. And that is not cool at all. Or so I thought. And unlike my abdominal
scar that I have no problem displaying during the summer months, no one is ever
allowed to see those hidden scars.
Sometimes, I feel that it would have been much easier
to have gone through life making myself believe that everything was okay; in
fact, I know that it would have been easier. But then I wonder: where would I
be today? Would God be able to use me in the same way that he has in the past
few years? Only a couple of people, maybe a handful, within Samson know me and
know the scars that I bear. Of that handful, maybe one or maybe two know the
extent of and the depth of pain that still haunts me to this day. No one at my
church does. And that is a painful cross that I bear each week. It is a sore
subject and just might be the topic of a future Samson blog.
Scars cover wounds. They block pain. Within the first
few weeks after my surgery in 2015, I got a terrible wound infection. My body
could not begin the healing process until that wound was addressed and treated.
The scar couldn’t form. The staples couldn’t be pulled. How many people have
wounds inside that have never been addressed and treated? My scars inside are
new, born of very old wounds that have finally started to heal over the last
decade.
I don’t think scars ever go away. In fact, I know that
most of them don’t. My 33-year-old scar still exists to remind me of a long-gone but playful puppy. It is a memory. A moment in time. A month and a half
after my surgery in 2015, I visited with the surgeon’s nurse where she
proceeded to pull the 48 Staples out of my incision with a pair of surgical
pliers. Surprisingly, it didn’t even hurt all that much. Perhaps it was because
the scar tissue blocked the nerves from sending the pain signal to my body.
I remember meeting with my surgeon a few months after
my surgery for a follow-up, postop visit. As I met with the surgeon that day, I
thanked him for saving my life and told him what a blessing he had been. I then
asked him if my scar would ever go away. He said no, son, I don’t think so.
With you being such a fair-skinned white boy, I think that your scar will
always be quite visible. And it is. Even though that happened back in 2015, I
see it every day when I wake up and get dressed. I see it when I take a shower.
I see it when I go swimming in the lake with my son in the summertime. Even
though I sometimes want to be resentful of that ugly mark, God tells me that I
am to be thankful. Thankful for my scars. And so, I am. For me, that scar is a
beautiful sign of God’s grace and mercy in my life. It is a sign that he was
not finished with me at that time. It is a mark on the roadmap of my life. I am
sometimes tempted to be resentful of my eternal scars as well. But I am
learning to instead be grateful.
I will have to admit, that I have not always looked at
my inward scars as something beautiful. Most days I still struggle to accept
them. As Natalie Grant sings:
“I
see shattered
You
see whole
I
see broken
But
You see beautiful
And
You're helping me to believe
You're restoring me piece by piece”
Even if I still find those internal scars painful, God
still honors them and uses them, and he is helping me to believe that he is
restoring me piece by piece. One day, the scars will be gone. Both the outwardly visible, and the internally invisible scars will be gone. I will sit down, wrapped
in the arms of my savior, on a bench bathed in golden sunlight somewhere in a
new creation. I will look at my hands and look at my arms and they will be
completely unblemished. The scars will be no more.
I still have pain every day. These days, the physical
pain is not as bad as it used to be, but the emotional pain will never go away.
I have learned to accept that I just have to keep on pressing forward and rising
to face each new day. The scars will always be there. But they don’t define me
as much as they used to.
I slowly rise from the cool metal bench where I have
been sitting alone, having taken a brief pause from my walk. I daresay I can
detect a hint of the winter wind somewhere far off in the air. As I continue
with my walk and begin to make my way back towards my office, I drop the two
leaves that I have been holding in my hands. As I watch them drift slowly to
the ground; they flutter about in a fantastical dance orchestrated by mother
nature. They fall, destined to join the hundreds of other leaves littering the
landscape. Suddenly, a wind blows, a breath blowing life into the leaves, and
they begin to rise from the ground and swirl all around me. Oranges, reds, and
golds all mix brilliantly into a fall kaleidoscope. As the wind begins to pick
up steam, the leaves swirl faster and faster all around me. Big leaves and
little leaves are all inter-mixed, yet each is unique and different in its own way. Little
veins, little marks, little scars of sorts; each leaf is unique and created
individually by the creator’s hand. The older I get, the faster life seems to
move, much like the leaves swirling around me. Big people, little people, old
people, young people all quickly moving around me and all carrying their own
scars. Each has a story; perhaps, it is a story that we can learn from if we
only take the time.
“What
was dead now lives again
My
heart's beating, beating inside my chest
Oh
I'm coming alive with joy and destiny
'Cause
You're restoring me piece by piece”
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