scars

my scar

This is my biggest nastiest scar, a big hole in my wrist.

When I was six or seven years old, I lived a few miles outside of a very small town called Cross City, FL. The local beaches were full of trees and broken jagged shells in the shallow parts of the water. Sometimes, when it was raining really hard, as it does in Florida, my mother would drive me to the beach and just park there and we would watch the storm over the water. But, I’m rambling.

One pleasant beach-friendly day, the whole family went to Horseshoe Beach. We probably set up a blanket, had some lunch. Eventually my father wandered off by himself on a very long walk. I was entertaining myself by the shore when I saw another girl my age, walking on the slippery rocks that lined the edge of the water. It looked quite fun, so I started doing it too.

And, of course, I fell. A sharp jagged edge of one of the rocks impaled my right wrist. Blood gushed. I screamed. My mother screamed. She ran to me and wrapped a towel tightly around my wrist, and the blood soaked through.

Just then, the other little girl’s family was backing their car up to leave, but they saw the commotion and her father came running. He was a doctor, and he did his doctorly things. All I really remember is crying and my mother squeezing my wrist so tight, and him telling her to loosen up. I think I was mostly crying just because my mother was so upset that it scared me.

I’m not sure what happened from that point on, somehow my father got called back, and we drove to the ER where we were informed that the hole in my wrist was so large that it really couldn’t be stitched up and the best they could do is bandage it.

And that’s when I started learning the difference between left and right.