SCARS

SCARS

            Some years ago, my pastor’s wife Angie, and I had been talking about scars. She gave me a sheet of paper with a story about a little boy who was a compulsive liar. His father trying to teach his son a lesson, decided to have the little boy put a nail in a stick of wood. Eventually the little boy told so many lies that the stick of wood was completely covered with nails. This caused the little boy to cry. His father, seeing his sons distress, told him that every time he spoke the truth he could remove a nail. Eventually all the nails were removed from the stick of wood. The little boy cried again. This time because the wood was covered with unsightly holes from where the nails had been.

            The little boy overcame the habit of lying. The holes were left as scars on the wood a reminder of his character. Scars are reminders of what we have been through. With time they fade, but they never truly go away. They stay with us.

            My body has many scars upon it. Some I remember quite vividly, as if it happened yesterday. Other scars I don’t remember how I got them. These are physical scars. Scars that can be seen with the naked eye.

            On my left hand the first two fingers have been scarred. It happened when I was a toddler, maybe two years old. My mom was ironing and got into an argument with my dad. They took their eyes off me only for a moment. But in that time, I pulled the iron off the ironing board and onto my hand burning the two fingers. I don’t remember pulling the iron off the board, but I have the scars as proof it happened.

            In the summer of my third-grade year. I was at my aunt Shirley’s house playing with my cousin David. He had a go-cart and we had been riding it nearly all day. Sometime in the afternoon before my dad was to come and pick me up, it started to rain. David pushed me in the carport backwards. I had killed the engine. As I was getting close to the wall, I hit the break, or I thought I had hit the break but didn’t and I ran into the wall. In the process I knocked several sheets of plywood over and onto my left hand. I was trying to hold the sheets of plywood up, but not for long they weighed to much and my arm finally gave away and my wrist landed on top of the very hot motor of the go-cart.

            I started screaming bloody murder. My cousin David who was standing not 10 feet from me froze in place. Finally, after several minutes of screaming, aunt heard me and came running. But the damage was done. I had this huge burn on my left wrist. It looked and smelled horrible.  It scabbed over. It was an unsightly thing to behold. There was no way that it would be healed before school started back. And it didn’t.  The smell was bad. But by the time school started back the smell had nearly gone. Just the scab remained.

            After high school I went to work for Stanley Furniture. I worked in the machine room.  I was running a shaper one afternoon, putting a beautiful design on a piece of wood. The piece of wood split and splintered into pieces and flew out of the shaper at me. Lucky for me I had on eye protection. But I still got injured in the process. I got hit in from pieces of wood on my left thumb and then two places on my stomach. Randy got to me pretty fast. I was standing in place in shock. He walked me down to the supervisor’s desk and then they took me to the Nurse. My mom’s best friend was the nurse. Once they got me down there. I was standing propped up next to the counter and she was asking me some questions. But she started sounding funny to my ears. And that is when the lights went out, and I passed out standing up. I didn’t fall over. Rita shook me a few times and used smelling salts before I came to. Then up the clinic I went.

            I didn’t lose my thumb. The doctor removed several pieces of wood splinters from my thumb and stomach. New scars to add to the ones, I already had. For some reason my left hand seemed to always get the brunt of the injuries. Probably because I am left handed.

            Not all scars are physical. Not all scars can be seen. There are scars that are mental and emotional. Mental and emotional scars cannot be seen, like physical scars. These scars go deeper and affect the mind and heart. They can cause illness, stress and even death.

            As a teenager my parents were having marital problems. I ended up moving out and living with my grandfather. My parents eventually split up. My dad couldn’t let things go and move on. After my grandfather would leave for work, my dad would barge into his home and cuss me out every morning before I would go to school. It was horrible. My grades began to slip. I started drinking and smoking. This went on for many months. I never told anyone.  I was afraid to. But the guidance counselor at school figured out something was going on and asked me about it. I filled her in on what was going on at home. She offered to help. I told her no, I’d be ok.

            Well I wasn’t ok. My grades kept slipping. I dreaded for my grandfather to leave for work. I had nightmares and lost sleep.  Then finally one morning it all came to a head. A guy that worked with my grandfather had taken the work truck home the night before and was late to pick my grandfather up.

            My dad came into the house and straight to where I was and set in cussing me like a dog. Little did my dad know that my grandfather was in the kitchen and was hearing everything he was saying. My grandfather didn’t take long to make his self-known to my dad. Nearly scared my dad to death. My grandfather let my dad in on a few things that morning. The thing was that if he ever came into his house again that he was a dead man.

            My dad never again came into my grandfather house. My grandfather was mad at me for not telling him what was going on. But my grandfather was my hero that day. My grades picked up. I stopped having nightmares.  It had gotten so bad, I had contemplated suicide.

            My relationship with my dad, never got better. A few years later, it came out that I was gay. My dad couldn’t take that. The thought his son was gay made him look unmanly and that was unacceptable. The verbal abuse I received from him have left scars that will never heal. I don’t worry about those scars like I once did. I have accepted them, and they no longer bleed. They remain with me as a reminder of what family is capable of inflicting upon another member.

            Being gay can cause many scars, physical and mental. I was very active in my church when I was outed. My church was not accepting of what I was term here as the quote, quote “gay lifestyle.” My pastor gave me an ultimatum, either I renounce the gay lifestyle and publicly apologize to my church family or I would be excommunicated from the church. It broke my heart. People that I trusted with my life, had just turned on me. I lost my best friend, Joel. He wouldn’t even speak to me. I was with him the night he was saved. But now that it came out, that I was gay, we were finished.

            I don’t know why I write about this now. It has been years. I have come to terms with who I am. Yes, I have lost people I love in the process of coming out. Friends and family, have went their separate ways. I speak to my dad infrequently. I see him even less. I have no contact with my former church family, unless it is by accident, and I run into one of them on a trip into my home town. We say our pleasantries and go on our way.

            Life shouldn’t be my way or the highway. But for many, that is just how it is. I’ve never been one to like being told what to do. I hate being given ultimatums. I have always been a stubborn person. I come by it honestly. Both of my parents are very stubborn. I just got a double dose of it, when I was born.

I know that the scars are proof to me and to others, that I have lived and been hurt. I am still alive and have survived those experiences that have left the scars. And I am a stronger person because of those experiences.