Don't be afraid to show your scars, seek help from others

  • Published
  • By Brig. Gen. Mark T. Matthews
  • 48th Fighter Wing commander
I can’t remember the blood. There must have been a lot of it, but I can’t see it. Funny, how the brain, especially that of a small child, blocks memories too horrific to comprehend.

It was the early summer of 1961, in the late afternoon. The air was thick with the smell of fresh hewn spring onions as my father mowed my grandmother’s yard. My cousin and I were playing on her front porch; one of those silly games small children engage in. We would take turns, one in the porch swing the other pushing from behind. As the swing swung back the one in the swing would spit at the other. If “tagged” with the spittle, the victim would jump from the porch, run around to and up the steps, and then swap places and roles with the other.

We were having great fun; so much so that I didn’t notice my father approaching the porch. The device he pushed was not the standard mower you’d envision today but what my father referred to as a tractor. It had a 3.5 HP Briggs & Stratton engine perched above two big knobby tires; tires slightly smaller than what you’d see on an ATV today. On the front was a drive mechanism to which you could attach a variety of devices such as a small tiller and a mowing device. This latter implement consisted of a saw-toothed blade that cycled back and forth between a fixed sieve creating a scissoring action to cut the grass.

As I jumped I saw the approaching mower, but too late. My father’s head was down while he concentrated on pushing the mower close to the porch wall. I landed on my hands and knees, with both arms going underneath the scything blade. Reflexively, I pulled my arms back, miraculously avoiding injury to the right, but too late for the left.

I can remember pain, but I can’t feel it. I can remember fear, without being able to see what so horrified me. In one smooth motion, my father killed the engine, ripping free its starter cord as he bent to grab me. Somehow, he held my flailing body as he wrapped the cord above the massive wound that had almost severed my left hand. Taking his bandana he tied another knot below the gash and ran, cradling me, to our neighboring house. By this time my screams had summoned my mother and the family sedan where my father nestled me between them and sped away. I felt cold and listless from the massive blood loss, symptoms I now recognize as shock. We raced to the hospital in Raleigh, twelve miles away, the speedometer in the old Plymouth pegged to the far right past a number I would only later recognize as 120.

Arriving in the emergency room the nurse had to produce a scalpel to remove my tourniquets. They summoned a surgeon, a grandfatherly man who knew too well the nature of my wounds from countless surgeries in Normandy field hospitals. He asked me to move my fingers. I couldn’t. With fascination I watched as he probed into the open wound and found, one by one, the severed tendons, tugging on them; my fingers responding marionette-like. He sat there for hours and sewed, and sewed and sewed, a master seamster quilting together arteries, veins and sinew. I watched enthralled in my morphine stupor as this craftsman pieced my arm back together. He would later proclaim me one of his masterpieces. Nevertheless, the wound left a prominent scar.

We all have scars. Some are visible, like the one on my arm. We wear them as badges of honor: a key tackle, an errant slap shot, a close encounter with death; however, most are hidden, buried in the recesses of our minds out of pride or shame or fear or for reasons we can’t even fathom — buried at great cost. My vivid scar would resurrect a painful memory and prompt my father’s recurring question: “Are you OK?” My answer was always “Of course.” This simple exchange was cathartic. My reassurance assuaged his guilt, his own scar. For myself, while the pain I saw in his eyes saddened me, it also reassured me: my father cared.

What scars do you hide? What do you deny yourself by doing so? What are you afraid of? Ask yourself these questions and if you don’t like where the answers leave you, then do something about it.

Your “wingman,” your chaplain and your spouse are just some of the folks who are willing to accept you, scars and all. You don’t have to wear them as a badge of honor; but neither do you have to hide them. Scars don’t go away. But with time and attention, they recede, and you learn to live with them. They become a part of you exposed to the light of the world. In my way of thinking, it’s a lot like launching on a bleak morning, hidden for a moment in dark clouds, then breaking clear into brilliant sunshine. You’re suddenly, excitedly, free.