My phone stayed in the car when I went in to pick up one of my two kids from daycare. In the meantime, a message popped up. I checked it upon returning to my car, expecting a robocall, but instead it was a staff person tending to my eldest kid. In the message, I heard some of the worst words strung together in a voicemail: “Your daughter has had an accident and needs to be picked up.”
My plucky, lanky girl had been playing on the playground equipment during aftercare at the school. Apparently, she was just tall enough to catch the handle of the zip-line right in the middle of her forehead. The goose egg that formed only further ripped the edges of the split skin on her face. She was immediately covered, head to toe, in her own blood. Her father beat me to the school, but assured me that she didn’t cry, not even once. The same could not be said for me.
A long wait in the emergency room and three well-placed stitches later, we could start talking about the likelihood of a scar. I had barely reconciled myself to things like concussion protocols and infection concerns, and now I had to face the truth: my kid would have a large, noticeable, gnarly scar right on her face.
Granted, I’m no stranger to facial scars. At three years old, I scraped my head against an exposed screw right at my hairline. My mom says there was enough blood that it looked as though my face had been painted red. At ten years old, I slipped on the side of a pool and landed on my eyebrow. But aside from losing a touch of my eyebrow to that last injury, both scars are really well-hidden. They blend in along the lines of my face and are basically unnoticeable unless you know what you’re looking for.
This would not be like that for my daughter. Every doctor we saw pointed out that since this scar was more vertical than horizontal, it would always stand out. It is uneven and lumpy. One doctor even mentioned that we might want to talk to a plastic surgeon once it healed up. It’s that big and jagged.
Generally speaking, I don’t consider myself particularly vain, but this scar bothers me. My kid has perfect skin, the kind of baby soft skin we spend the rest of our adult lives trying to achieve. She’s so fair that when she was a baby, I could see all the blood vessels in her face. I can still see traces of that tiny baby when I look at just how delicate her skin is. This giant snarl in the middle of her forehead reminds me that she’s big, no longer a sweet, secure little baby. Worse yet, it reminds me that I can’t always keep her safe. It is a pink smudge of my own failure on my daughter’s face. Our shared vulnerability staring at me with an unwavering gaze.
And yet, this isn’t our first parental foray into scars. Precisely two years ago, my brave girl had a large chalazion excised from her eyelid. That’s medical jargon for having a growth removed from the underside of her eyelid, requiring anesthesia and significant wound care. One of the biggest risks was that her eyelid would develop scars that would inhibit its function. Sure, vanity came into the equation, but the bigger risk was her eye just not working right.
While I talked to her leading up to the surgery, I explained how the doctor would have to cut into her skin to help her get better. She got really upset. She started to cry, afraid it would hurt. I told her that it might hurt, but it would only be to make her better. How did I know that? I lifted up my shirt and pointed to the three inches of appendectomy scar on my abdomen. A doctor had once cut me open, too. It hurt, but eventually, it made me better.
That truth – that I have my own scars and am better for them – is what helped her face her surgery with confidence.
Right now, my girl doesn’t know to be self-conscious about her scar. She’s too busy with kindergarten and birthday parties and learning to write. Someday might be different. Someday she might try makeup or a different haircut or any number of tricks to hide the way her face will forever bear the mark of the time she lost her fight with playground equipment. Someday she might think of her scar as a fault, a flaw, an embarrassment.
But maybe I can help her tell another story. Maybe I can help her remember that we’ve all got our share of scars. They remind us of some of our worst moments: accidents and illnesses, injuries and surgeries, times of fear and moments of panic. But scars mean you made it. Scars remind us that we are just as resilient as the skin that has knit itself back together. Scars are stories of how strong, brave, and real we truly are. Our scars are the badges we wear as we look at others and welcome them, scars and all, into a life of honesty and imperfection.
When you look at it that way, those scars look pretty beautiful.
