On my left cheek there’s a scar. Many have mistaken it for a dimple over the years but it’s a scar made by a screwdriver piercing my cheek when I ignored my mum’s warning not to go into the back hall and tripped over my dad’s feet as he embarked on some DIY and I fell on his toolbox.
An emergency dash to hospital ensued. I don’t remember that or the crying or the tears or the recriminations or the doctors and nurses. I don’t remember the stitches or being told I was lucky it hadn’t gone in further but I’ve been told about it and the scar on my cheek reminds me all the time.
Here on my knee is another scar. Half an inch or so, whiter than the rest of my skin, it’s barely noticeable but it’s the result of climbing a fence and not quite avoiding the barbed wire on the other side. There was a lot of blood. I do remember that. And I remember the pain. And here’s the scar, most definitely a scar, not a dimple, but it’s faded over time.
I have another scar, a livid red one that throbs and hurts daily and there’s nothing I can do about that. I have to live with it. We all get these scars - probably several, possibly many - over the years. They twist and twine and hurt like crazy but no one sees them. They’re inside. Mostly hidden, they’re the scars of grief. Of grief and hurt, loss and loneliness, madness and fear. Everything that grief brings with it; its bitter compatriots.
People think grief is a mental thing but it’s very much physical too. The pain in your chest, the lead weight of realisation crushing your heart, causing headaches and your guts to twist and knot.
These scars of grief are from the hurt of realising you won’t see your loved one ever again on this earth: their green eyes, their dark hair, their ready smile.
They’re from the loss of their voice, their comforting words, their jokes, kind words, their laugh.
They’re from the hurt of the lack of their embrace, their kiss on your cheek, their soft hand stroking your arm.
They’re from the deep absence of never smelling their perfume or the aroma of your favourite childhood meal filling the kitchen or that particular stab of metaphorical barbed wire when you smell their perfume on someone else and you turn around thinking it’s them.
They’re from the loss of a future you had planned.
When I screamed all those years ago as the cold metal pierced my left cheek and the sharp claw of the wire tore my right knee, I never dreamt that what causes internal scars could hurt so much more - that in the future the scars would run so deep.
Scars, visible and invisible, mark our passage through life, through hurt and pain and loss and grief - but also trace the story of our love. Love that rushes when you cry, when you hurt, that stitches you up and hugs the tears away. And love is entwined in every hidden scar - when you feel the scar tighten and hurt, know this: grief is love’s scar tissue.