I’ve long held a fascination with scars — both my own and other people’s.
Scars hold stories. Not many people get a scar from something they don’t remember.
I remember being fascinated in middle school by this really cute girl I wanted to talk to. She had a tiny scar over her top lip. I wondered from afar how it happened, thinking that that tiny imperfection added so much to her beauty.
My older son has a scar on his leg he earned from rolling down a hill as children will do — right into a metal post.
My wife has a scar on her collarbone. Behind it is a story about how she almost died as a child from aplastic anemia, how she went through chemotherapy and lost all her hair, how her older sister proved to be a perfect bone marrow match, how — Carla being Carla — she was most upset not about this life-threatening disease but that she was missing school.
I look in the mirror at my own body and think about the stories those scars tell.
My left ankle and foot are awash with scars from reconstructive surgery in 2009, a nearly footlong mark running the length of my Achilles tendon, a 6-inch line on the right side of the foot and smaller one in the back where a nail once held my heel bone back in place.
There’s the one I wrote about recently that’s on my left shin, left by the horn of a fake deer during a game of tag.
There’s the one just below my sternum, a small slit that’s part of a set of four torso scars caused during laparoscopic gall bladder surgery.
There’s the one on my chin, covered by my beard these days, which was busted open on the gym floor in first grade and led to my gym teacher, Mr. Walsh (a Vietnam veteran), carrying me like Forest Gump carried Bubba to the nurse’s office while I bled all over him.
There’s the one just under my bottom lip, through which my tooth poked when, as a 2-year-old, I drove my little tyke bike off the step into our kitchen despite repeated admonitions to “be careful.”
There’s the newest one, a big round spot on my forehead, which had the unfortunate circumstance of meeting the concrete of the wall outside the basement of our house when I got dizzy in the August heat and took a bad step off the deck stairs, passing out and falling literally headfirst.
Then there’s the one just below the newest one. It’s nothing more than a small dot over my right eyebrow. I call that one Jacob’s Scar.
It wasn’t enough …
Around this time 22 years ago, Carla and I were preparing for the birth of our first child, knowing the chances of us actually taking him home was highly unlikely. Did you know how many things can go wrong with a pregnancy? I didn’t. Sure, I’d heard of people having miscarriages, but never had I met someone whose child had died at birth, who knew for four long months before that birth that that was the likely outcome.
As if shouldering that burden wasn’t tough enough, the morning before Carla went to what would turn out to be her last prenatal doctor’s appointment, I started to run a fever. That was the only reason I wasn’t there when the doctor told her — to get ultra-personal here — she was starting to dilate and that the baby would be coming soon. When she arrived home from that appointment, I was collapsed in a chair in our home office, huddled under a thick handmade afghan, shiver-sweating.
That night, labor began. By 11 a.m. the following morning, we met our son. Five hours later, he breathed his last breath.
We were moved out of the ward where babies are born to a room on a high-up floor at the end of a hall. That hospitals have such a room is the height of sadness. It’s quiet. Away from the foot traffic of new moms and dads and cries of healthy babies.
I made it through that day … somehow. The nurses pumped me full of what I’m sure were the most expensive Tylenol I’ve ever been given. And I just … did what I had to do. I fell asleep that night on a pull-out couch across the room from Carla, watching snow fall from the darkness into and out of the lights in the parking lot.
How do you sleep when you’re at the finish line of a marathon four months long that results not in such overwhelming heartbreak and sadness? Not well. At least, I didn’t. By the time the morning light was peeking up over the horizon and through the faraway trees, I was awake and in desperate need of a shower.
I turned the water on hot. As the tiny bathroom started to fog, I undressed … and saw dozens of bumps all over my chest. Leaning in toward the mirror, I noticed more on my face and neck, including one honkin’ one just over my right eyebrow.
It took a moment, but then the realization washed over me: It wasn’t enough that I’d gone through four months of hell, four months of doctors appointments and false hope, four months of helping support a wife growing more pregnant by the day, four months of trying to figure out why this was happening, four months of wrestling with my newfound. It wasn’t enough to have to pick out a gravesite for my child. It wasn’t enough to have to witness my son’s last breath and then, several hours later, hand his lifeless body over to a nurse, knowing I’d never hold him again.
No, none of that was enough.
I had chicken pox.
There’s something that happened in that moment of realization: I laughed. I laughed because there really was nothing else to do. I’d cried so many tears over the previous four months and drained the tank of whatever was left the day before. And so, standing there naked in the increasingly steamy bathroom, I laughed.
The next few days are a blur. We came home. I slept. A lot. I was feverish and achy and miserable in so, so many ways. I itched all over.
We planned a funeral. I put on a suit. I went to the church and was brought to my knees by the sight of a tiny casket at the front of the sanctuary. We sat in the front row, and I listened to the pastor and received the well-wishes of friends and family, all while sweating and freezing and looking absolutely abysmal.
We buried our son that day. A bagpiper played Amazing Grace. We went home, and I suffered through the rest of the chicken pox. All that remains today from the infection is the scar from that honkin’ big one over my right eyebrow. Jacob’s Scar.
What time is and isn’t.
The fact that 22 years have gone by and I still feel all of this as deeply as I do is revelatory of two things:
- I am a big-time feeler.
- Time doesn’t heal all wounds.
Everyone who knows me knows that first thing. Everyone who’s lost a child knows the second one.
In the wake of Jacob’s death and the chicken pox that accompanied it, life kept going. That’s what life does. Time is this uncontrollable force moving in one direction. We humans have tried to make it cyclical by inventing calendars and watches and clocks and day planners and schedules. We have these handy divisions of time — seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, quarters, years, decades, centuries, millennia.
But time isn’t cyclical, and everything we use to measure it isn’t actually a measurement of time. They are measurements of motion.
A day is a day only because we are right here, right now. Were we anywhere else in the enormous universe, a day would not equal 24 hours. On Mars, it’s 25 hours. On Saturn, it’s 11. On Mercury, it’s 1,408 hours. On Venus it’s 5,832.
Even right here, to say a day is 24 hours isn’t precisely true. That’s why we have a once-every-four-years catchup day called Leap Year. In fact, astronomers have observed recently that something wonky is going on with the Earth and a day is less than 24 hours more than its ever been in recorded time. Or should I say “recorded motion.”
A lot of motion has happened over the past 22 years. There will soon have been 22 December 20ths between now and then. Proof that time is linear and always moving forward, the emotions surrounding each has been different every time the day nears. To say I am healed is a lie. I’m not. I mean, for Christ’s sake … I watched my son die and had to hand his lifeless body over to a nurse. You really think anyone actually heals from that?
Scars mark a moment in time on that long continuum that stretches back to denote the start of our time here on Earth. What exists on my left shin marks the exact moment that fake deer’s antler gouged my flesh. Jacob’s Scar marks when I realized just how fucking cruel life really can be.
Every scar tells a story. Every scar marks a moment in time. Time itself marks a moment in motion. No matter how much we would like it to be different, that motion is always forward. Time moves on. It doesn’t go backward. The universe itself is expanding … into what and how, I have no idea.
What I do know is that scars are important. They mean something. They matter. They speak to our ability to survive trauma and the wonders of our body’s propensity to heal itself.
What we need to be aware of are the scars that aren’t as readily apparent. I’m glad I have Jacob’s Scar. It’s a good physical reminder to chill out when I start to take what truly are the little problems of life too seriously. What no one sees, though, is how the pain of losing my son remains. It’s 22 years later. For me to expect anyone to see or know or understand that is not fair. That doesn’t make it less true.
Inside, I carry the scars of that moment in time and space, as well as some pretty significant ones from other moments that weren’t exactly kind. I am different because of those scars, just as my body looks different because of the scars from the surgeries and the deer antler impact.
Pay attention to people’s scars. Listen to their stories. Care about the invisible ones. They are what has shaped the person you are seeing into who they are.
More From ‘Wrestling With Myself’
Somewhere in the Middle
If you chart my journey with religion over the 50-plus years I’ve been riding this planet as it makes its way repetitively around the sun, it’s a lot less smooth than the orbit we take. I was raised with nothing … but not truly nothing because we live in Muricah and so it was America…
Invisible
Today at lunch I did what I do when I am eating lunch at work, not because I want to but because I have no option for what I’d really like. I left my desk, went down the elevator, walked into the cafe area, assembled my salad, got a glass of ice water, paid, and…
The Pain of Solitude
Over the past few years, I have learned better self-regulation of my emotions, which are never not intense. Happiness, sadness, anger, fear, jealousy, grief … whatever it is, when I feel it, I feel it strongly. “Sensitive as fuck,” as an amazing someone used to say. The real fear I have is that all of…
Too Loud, Too Fast
Technically speaking, the driver of the white pickup truck didn’t do anything illegal. Hell, he didn’t even do anything that wrong. Did he pull out from the cross street with my car closer to his than I would have done if positions were reversed? Absolutely. But I barely had to apply my brakes to avoid…
Nine Sad Songs for a Hurting Heart
A random Monday in December. Here’s what I’m listening to, from my Sadness playlist on Spotify. Black, Pearl Jam I know someday you’ll have a beautiful lifeI know you’ll be a starIn somebody else’s skyBut whyWhyWhy can’t it beWhy can’t it be mine Whiskey and You, Chris Stapleton Come tomorrow, I can walk in any…
Missing Jacob … Still
I was barely 26 years old the day I had to pick out a burial site for my yet-to-be born son. It would have been irresponsible not to. In the time between the late August 2000 diagnosis that our first child wasn’t likely to live much past birth and the December afternoon that turned the…
99 Days: One Year Left – Day 10
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: What does “home” mean to you emotionally, physically, and mentally? The Deets: What do you need to feel “at home?” Is it people, a city, familiarity? Explore where you find pockets of the feeling of…
Surgery, Soft Foods & Sumo
It’s been more than a month since I’ve written anything on this site. I guess I just needed a break from living my life so publicly, which is laughable when you consider how few people actually read this crap. On Nov. 18, I had major neck surgery, with my C3 and C4 vertebrae fused after…
99 Days: One Year Left – Day 10
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: If you only had a year left to live, how would your focus change? The Deets: What would take priority? Who would you spend more time with today? Would you want to know the time…
99 Days: Minimum Wage Job – Day 9
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Try this thought experiment about work … The Deets: If you had all the money in the world but had to hold down one minimum wage job for the rest of your life, what kind…
99 Days: Life Paths – Day 8
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Take time to consider the career, relationship, and life paths you didn’t take. The Deets: What if you had gone to a different school, lived in a different city, or taken a different job? What…
99 Days: Traits I Love – Day 7
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Consider the traits you love the most. The Deets: If you could keep just five qualities about yourself, what would they be? Why? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. There ya have it. There ya are.
99 Days: Inner Child – Day 6
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Write a letter to your inner child. The Deets: What would you have wanted someone to tell you at 5, 12, or 18? What difference would it have made in your life if someone had? …
99 Days: True Self – Day 5
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Get clear on the environments and circumstances where your truest self is the most comfortable. The Deets: When was the last time you felt most like yourself? What were you doing? Who were you with?…
99 Days: Boundaries – Day 4
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Identify your hard-set boundaries The Deets: What are five things you’re willing to be disliked for? What is it you see differently from the majority? What do your answers indicate you’re most passionate about? I’m…
99 Days: 10 and 90 – Day 3
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Write a script between your past 10-year-old self and your future 90-year-old self. The Deets: What would they say to each other? What would they talk about? What would your 90-year-old self want your kid…
99 Days: Tree – Day 2
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Day 1: Day in the Life, 2034 Today’s Assignment: Pick a type of tree you feel most embodies your personality. The Deets: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Take time to…
99 Days: Day in the Life, 2034 – Day 1
This is part of a series of self-discovery blogs inspired by The Good Trade’s “99 Exercises for Self-Discovery.” Today’s Assignment: Imagine a day in your life 10 years from today. The Deets: This dreaming exercise was originally created by Milton Glaser (described by Debbie Millman here) where you set a timer for 30 minutes and…
The Death of Dreams
Dreams die hard. This, I have learned in all these trips around the sun. I’m not talking about the types of dreams that come at night, though, for me, some of those are so strong that they have yet to die. That’s a topic for another day. The dreams I am talking about are the…
Loneliness and Safety
I find myself alone a lot, even when I’m not. This isn’t a new phenomenon, though it is new to my attention. I’ve just turned 50, and that seemed as good a time as any for some reflection. I grew up in what appeared to be an idyllic family. It wasn’t. There was the stay-at-home…
Disconnecting
I think I’m in the process of disconnecting. Earlier this week, I logged out of Facebook and Instagram. I deleted all social apps from my phone. I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’ll ever be going back. I’m just kinda done. There was a time social media helped connect me to a past I…
Wearing It
I was introduced to the concept of Wearing It through my now 14-year-old son and his Little League mates. When a batter is at the plate and he dives out of the way of a pitch that otherwise would have hit him, his teammates in the dugout would scream, “Oh, come on! Wear it!” The…
Eternal Sunshine, 20 Years Later
I have been told that I tend to romanticize romance and, thus, have an unrealistic view on how romance actually works. And to be fair, if this is true, I come by it honestly. I grew up in the era of rom-coms in which heart-sick lovers won the girl back through grand acts that involved…
Struggling With the Default State
The human brain is fascinating in its complexity and should serve as an instrument through which we are humbled, considering how little we understand about it. Let me explain this by talking about a worm. Caenorhabditis elegans is this disgusting little roundworm that happens to have the distinction of being the first multicellular animal whose…
The Irony of My New Employer
“Isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya’ think?’ Alanis Morisette Forget for a second the fact that Alanis had a rather loose hold on the definition of the word “Irony” when she penned the lyrics to her 1996 song “Ironic,” because life is, indeed, ironic. For the regular readers of my site (Hello, you three), I have…
When Can I Be Done?
I ask a lot of questions. I’ve always asked a lot of question. If there was a prototypical annoying 3-year-old who wanted to know the “Why?” of everything, just look at a picture of 3-year-old me and that’s the kid. It never stopped. I still ask myself a lot of questions, but the one I…
The Lonely Have The Answer
Evolutionarily speaking, the feelings we hate the most are good for us. Take fear. Fear sucks, right? But fear also biochemically gets your body ready to fight or flee, and from a survival standpoint, that’s a good thing. Then there is loneliness. I’ve been lonely a lot lately. I mean, an awful lot. This isn’t…
Grief, Twenty-Three Years Later …
As a society, we don’t like messy grief. We make movies and write books about people whose grief is nice and neat and tidy and, most of all, purposeful. Dignified. Proper. But messy grief — or, as I like to call it, real grief … no one makes a movie or writes a book or…
Toxic Sacrifice
It makes sense that, traditionally speaking, men raised in the United States build their life around sacrifice. It’s a deeply embedded part of our culture. As a historically Christian-dominant nation, we are raised with a male-identified God who came to Earth in the form of a man who literally laid down his life not just…
When Old Things Don’t Fit
Most of us are familiar with how it feels when we find an old article of clothing in the back of our closet and make the mistake of trying it on. Bodies change. Styles change. Tastes change. In most instances, closet finds and best left unfound. I think it’s something of a truism in life…
The Significant Things
Oh, to know The Significant Things as they happen That the casual “hello” is the first word you are speaking to your forever love. The handshake is an introduction to the person who will most deeply touch your soul The trip, taken, is the one that starts the path to your destiny. To know The…
Hard
So much of this world is hard. By that, I don’t mean “difficult,” though yes, it is that, too. What I mean by “hard” is the opposite of “soft.” I’m talking about the kind of thing that, when you bump your shin or — God forbid — your pinkie toe against it, it fucking hurts.…
Sixteen Notebooks
It was the afternoon of Sept. 26, 2015, and I’d just returned home from a short stay in a psychiatric hospital. The pace of life in a psychiatric hospital is glacial. Days stretch on endlessly, nights pass in medicated dreamlessness, and the cycle repeats again. There’s horrible food, group sessions, recreation time outside when it’s…
Thirty Years in Hell: My Mental Health Story
This is a story I share with great hesitancy. I have felt the bitter sting of discrimination for having a brain illness, discrimination no one experiences when they have a problem with a different, better understood organ — the heart, the lungs, the kidneys. I know what it’s like to have work colleagues ignore you…
What Healing Looks Like
Healing isn’t for the faint of heart. Not if it’s genuine. Not if you delve deep into the core where all that is ugly and wicked and broken has had time to take root and fester. Real healing is not all about finding sunny days and happy times. Maybe those are on the other side…
Since Then
Since Then … Every morning holds that moment Every mile, a reminder Every night sighs a silent prayer Since Then … The music tends to a hurting heart Harmonizing with the memories of what was Before ripping the wounds open once again Since Then … A million words haven’t fixed what I didn’t know was…
I’m Doing Alright, But …
The drive home last night was a bit rough, which wasn’t entirely surprising. I’ve been around a lot of people the past few days, hadn’t slept past 4:30 a.m. for four or five days, and, in general, this has been one of those “Big Feels” times that seem to happen to me. There are these…
The Inside Story of Johnny Boy Marketing
Big things happen in odd places and at the strangest times. I met my future wife in the basement of a dingy college residence hall. The biggest boost to my career came when I had to cancel an interview with someone who could have been President of the United States. And I realized I could…
A Human Paradox
One of the great paradoxes COVID revealed in the human animal is how much we need each other while we simultaneously can’t stand to be around each other for long periods of time. Stay-at-home orders booted us from our familiar social circles and, in many cases, put is in direct contact with those we love…
Soul Comforts
Soul Comforts A just-because gift An accidental nap Shared fries A hidden note, found A joined passion A soft hand Communicated desires A hug, freely given A safe landing place A secluded table Memory-filled songs Appreciation, openly stated Take me away from here Take me away Take me Take A common blanket A slow dance…
Searching For The Sweet Spot
I believe there’s a sweet spot in life. It’s that space in which everything just feels balanced. There’s not too much work or too little play, the calendar is just full enough, your friends and family are who you need them to be and you are who they need you to be. Your job is…
Anybody Out There?
My wife and son are going out of town for the week starting tomorrow afternoon, and I have absolutely no one I can call to do anything with. No one. Nobody. If I put in pin in my house on a map (remember those?) and drew a circle with a 50 mile radius, there isn’t…
The Night I Died
I’ve been thinking about death a lot lately. The reasons are varied and scattered. Part of it is how much death there is around me. Well, maybe not around me personally. But more than 1,000,000 Americans have died from Covid, and that’s a gross understatement because the true toll won’t be known for years, once…
The Danger of Self-Censorship
There’s been a lot of talk in my area lately about banning books. I love this. Oh, it’s not because I think that banning books is such a good idea. It’s not. Nor is blindly insisting that every book needs to be in a school library to have significance. They don’t. What I’m happy to…
Welcome Back, Swagger
There was a time in my life when I had swagger. I was never the most popular or athletic kid in school, but for a while there, I was a really good baseball player. I could hit. I could field. And, boy, could I pitch. Some of the most “over” kids in high school would…
Dear World, Seriously … WTF?
Dear World, Hey there. It’s me. John. John who? Yeah, I thought you might say that. It has been a day. It has been a week. Hell, world … it has been a life. Oh. Wait. You need to grab my file? Go ahead. I’ll wait. Give it a good read. Yeah, don’t skip over…
A Life Devoid of Friends
I remember well the late night and early morning hours following my senior prom. I was with my classmates on a yacht/ferry/boat slowly circling New York City. I and my girlfriend of roughly a year had stepped out of the madness inside for some fresh air and quiet. Even then, I could only do “loud”…
Livin’ The Empath Life
I was in my 40s by the time I realized the average person doesn’t feel things like I do — not even close. Up until then, I always just assumed that when people were around someone who was feeling some sad or angry or even extremely happy, they felt that shit too. I’m not talking…
Dreams
Insomnia sucks. Period. Full Stop. But… The benefit of sleeping extremely poorly for about four months after Longhaul Covid turned my already bad sleep situation into one that was slowly killing me was that I didn’t dream. I never slept deeply enough or long enough for dreams to happen. And in many ways, that was…
James Might Have Killed His Dad
James was one of the first people I met when we moved from the frozen tundra of south-central Minnesota to the ruralist of rural Missouri in 2009. We signed up my older son, Joey, for Little League right away in an effort to spur the formation of friendships and to scratch his itch for the…
So Many Damn Feelings — Oct. 22, 2021
👇 What’s Below 👇On Men and Crying 😭 Why I write ✍🏻Back Crackin’ 👨⚕️ So here’s a thing I sometimes hate about myself: I cry. Like, easily. And often. Or at least it’s “often” in comparison to how often men normally cry. At least, I think it’s often in comparison to the frequency men normally cry. I…
Infant Loss Awareness — Oct. 15, 2021
Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, and even almost 21 years later, I’m not sure how I feel about it. So much of time is arbitrary. We screw it up so badly that we have to add a whole day every four years. So for me, today is just like any other day…
Fourth State of Being — Oct. 14, 2021
There’s this state of being that’s not quite asleep, not quite dreaming but definitely not awake. That’s where I found myself Thursday evening at Livin’ Sublime Wellness, my little yoga studio in Wentzville. Restorative yoga is a lifesaver for me. If you haven’t tried it, you should. Not to sound all Hippie-Dippy or anything, but…
Rocks > People? — Sept. 16, 2021
In high school, I was friends with a girl named Denise. She and I were both free-spirited creative types who liked to write. For a time, we served as co-presidents of the formed-by-us creative writing club, and we even went on a date (that didn’t work out too well). Denise was and is a no-bullshit…
Why Exactly Am I Here? — Sept. 4, 2021
Sometimes Things Be That Way There are some days that, when night falls and you take stock of all that happened, you just say — or at least think — “Well good goddamn. What the fuck was that all about?” Today has been such a day. I look back at the waking hours and realize…
An Emotional Day – Aug. 29, 2021
Believing in Myself So here’s the thing: I have amazing intuition. Believe what you want about humans having only five senses. We don’t. We have more. And for me, one of my strongest senses is my gut feelings about what to do and not to do. I’ve had this ability since I was a small…
Leave a Reply