Abby Fiestal contributing writer
Love is the Story
Scars are a sort of echo from the past . They invite us to wonder , to ask questions , to listen to the distant strands of a story . What happened here ? What made this scar ? Why is it crooked ? Why on that spot ? My two youngest children were each born with health problems galore . My daughter spent seven months in the hospital before coming home breathing through a tracheostomy tube with the help of a ventilator and eating through a feeding tube . Her little brother spent six months in the hospital before his first trip home with his own collection of tubes . Between the two of them , they have more scars on their little bodies than most of us collect in a lifetime . The scars tell the stories of this surgery , that procedure , this line placement , and that test . Each spot is a reminder of a victory won , a battle fought , or a fear faced . I cannot see their scars without reliving the events that put them there , events which introduced us to hundreds of new faces . Kind faces , determined faces , women ’ s faces , men ’ s faces . Faces of people who cared , people who showed up to work , and people who prayed . The scars are a silent album of memories filled with page after page of faces of nurses , doctors , specialists , therapists , and friends . These faces put deeper marks than a physical scars on our lives , they put marks of love . Oh , it ’ s not a real picturesque , “ all the good feelings ” type of love I ’ m talking about , but a tangible , sturdy , kind of ugly “ we ’ re going slog through this mess together ” type of love .
The first time , ( sometimes kids just can ’ t be content to do crazy things only once ), my daughter ever “ coded ”, we rushed to the hospital , I was a wreck , her nurse brought me a cup of sweet tea and box of tissues . We weren ’ t supposed to have drinks at the bedsides , but a cup of sweet tea was in order that day . It was just a small thing , just a cup of tea , but I remember . I ’ ll always remember that day , it prompted the discussion to do a tracheostomy surgery , which brought a deep permanent scar to my little girl ’ s neck . But that day also left a scar on my heart , a scar of kindness , put there by a small cup of tea and a face that cared . There ’ s the nurse that brought a tiny shirt from home she had made herself to let my daughter wear long before preemie clothes would come close to fitting . There ’ s the transport nurses and respiratory therapists , multiple ones on multiple trips , who took a moment to send me a quick text message to reassure me that the little trouble maker in question had arrived at his or her destination still breathing . There ’ s the doctors and specialists who spent much of their valuable time explaining details , hashing out options , calling in the middle of the night to update us personally . There ’ s the nurses who took foot prints and made mother ’ s day cards . There ’ s the friends who have dropped everything literally in a second to come rushing to help when an extra hand was needed . There ’ s the stranger ’ s prayers , the cards in the mail , the hugs on hard days , and the random pizza delivered at the door . In short , there are too many kindnesses , there is too much love , to ever recount fully , all meticulously recorded in a strange sort of library , the liberal sprinkling of scars across pure baby skin . The scars are not the story , pain is not the story , love is the story .
Isn ’ t it interesting that Jesus chose to keep the scars of the cross after His resurrection ? He is God after all , He could have gotten rid of them if He had wanted . He kept them , He showed them to the doubter , they were the proof of His identity . More than that , they were , they are , the proof of His love . He lived the making of His
26 FEBRUARY 2017 SHEMAGAZINE . COM