Beautiful Scars

In order to carve out the cancer, a surgeon recommended the full removal of a breast.  There were many tumours and it was necessary but being left with a 15cm slash where a breast had been wasn't easy.  It didn't feel like a fair trade-off.  Yes, the cancer was gone but so was a precious piece of femininity.  And self-confidence.  I felt like half a woman.  
I tried to find the humour in it.  I talked about being a super-hero called the Mono-Boober.  I said I no longer had to worry about showing cleavage but only cleave.....but there were times when the laughter wasn't enough to shrug away the pain.

The absolute best preparation for my mastectomy surgery was meeting with other breast cancer survivors.  Those who shared vulnerable moments of their lives and journeys with me.  Those who said, "I know how you feel and what it's like.  Me too."  
One friend even offered to show me her scars.
She showed me her scars.
And I felt that if she could do this....wear these scars...than so could I.  
And I moved forward with a strange sense of strength.

Now I am scarred and life has moved on and, in a sense, everyone is over my breast cancer thing.  What you see is a full chest....expertly filled out by the best bean-bag prosthesis money can buy.  But every day, I am startled by the scooped out chest.  It's a scar serving as a constant reminder.  A scar hiding.  A scar that bears witness to a journey.  A plot-line of pain and perseverance.      
  
I've spent an awful lot of time staring at this scar.  Tracing it.  Trying to see the beautiful that it is:  skin knit back together.  Evidence of a body repairing itself after injury.  A body pulling and putting itself together again.

Scarring is, after all, the most natural part of the healing process.  

A scar says "You're better now but never forget.  I have forever changed you and reshaped you.  And maybe the world will stop noticing or maybe the world never noticed at all because my scars are hidden, but I see.  I notice. I bear witness to your pain."

I've been thinking a lot about scars.  Maybe we should dismiss them less.   Hide them less.  Be less ashamed of the ways they have reformed us.   I've been thinking that maybe we need to see our scars as statements.   Statements of healing.    Of repair and mending.  Statements of a body and a life that's put and pulled back together again.   Statements of hope.

Maybe a scar is a beautiful thing after all.


- B