maybe scars show your strength
[as soon as i woke up, these words spilled out..]
even at ten years old, i could tell that this wound went deep.. that the scars would always be there.
i can hear the sixth grade boys in the hallway, as i walk behind them from the bathroom to lunch.. “did you hear about the plane crash?”
i can hear my fifth grade teacher’s voice try to remain steady as she tells us.. (all i really recall her saying is that she’d let our parents talk to us about it..) down the hall, my sister’s fourth grade class watched the news.
the rest of school is a blur, until my best friend + i wait at our places in the hallway for our younger siblings to meet up with us. this is how it always was.. but everything felt different. as i quietly wondered with her if my dad would be safe downtown, inside the board of trade, that afternoon, my first grade brother couldn’t stop asking us questions. he could tell something was up, but i tried (+ failed) to quiet him with my teacher’s words.. there was no quick way to make him understand.. “we’ll talk with mom about it when we get home..”
i haven’t watched the footage in years, but i can see the planes and clouds of smoke.. my friend was home sick from school, that morning, + watched it all unfold over her bowl of cereal. a small tv in their kitchen tuned in to the morning news. “mom, it happened again!”
“no, honey, it’s a replay..”
but it wasn’t..
these were pre-cellphone days, so we didn’t know much about what was going on in chicago, till dad got home from work.. there was so much we didn’t know.. (my mind, my family, my nation).. the hours between my coming through the back door + his felt like days..
i hear myself plead with my mom to turn off the tv. my little heart was broken + i couldn’t bear to see it happening, anymore.. they played the clips over + over + over.
i can see us walking through the doors of my childhood church. the scared, tired eyes of my neighborhood closing to lift it all up to God. desperate prayers for peace + whatever else you say to Him in the most broken mess i could imagine.. i didn’t think about the impending war, the fact that this day would be immortalized in history books. the nightmare day stretched on, endlessly, before me. it was night, now, but it felt like it would never end.
by ten years old, i had been struck by my papa’s sudden passing + the columbine shootings. both are just as vivid heartbreaks in my mind. the brokenness of the world we lived in on full display. i didn’t comprehend it, but i knew that it pained me enough to stay with me.
something was deeply wrong. would we wake up tomorrow with it all behind us? a nightmare..maybe that’s what it was. there was a hurricane of hurt + confusion in my young heart.. why would someone do this?
some see scars as signs of weakness–of what you lost–but to me they’re evidence of what strengthens you.. they tell stories, they tell you that wounds eventually heal. they remind you redemption is possible. that healing does come.. they mark you + stay with you, but they don’t have to define you.
gummygunk
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
andulkaphoto
blakekathryn
izzy806
stormborns
theartofmadeline
