Scars

A friend's misfortune with the rain lead to some thoughts on scars. Scars tell stories. Or they offer the road to a story. I have never once taken, or allowed anyone to take a picture of the above scars. They're on my thighs. Second and third degree burns from when I was seven. My mother made fish chowder for my grandfather as my grandmother was away somewhere. It must have been a special occasion as she rarely had the money to buy the ingredients for the chowder. I know she saved some for us. The rest she put into a plastic bowl for my dad to drive over to my grandparents. I begged to go, and my dad actually said yes. I waited in his truck so excited while he carried out the bowl. He placed the bowl in my lap and the cover poped off. The chowder which simmered all day spilled all over my legs. I remember the pain to this day but I can not ever put into words. It was the scream that came from me which tells that story. And my dad wouldn't move as I just screamed and screamed clawing at my dad trying to get out to my mom. She came running out, and carried me into the house. She put in the tub and when she took my jeans, my skin peeled off in layers into the water. My dad kept repeating "It's not that bad" and refused to call an ambulance (because of money). My mom wrapped me in a wet sheet, and drove me twenty miles to the hosptial. I stayed for two and a half weeks, enduring the worst pain in my life.

After I refused to get skin grafts because my Pentecostal family convinved me that God would heal my burns. God didn't heal me.

My dad never visited me in the hosptial.

The nurses yelled at me for screaming too much.

My grandmother brought me green grapes and a Happy Meal for my first meal of soild foods.

My dad left our family shortly after this. He was seeing a woman who had two daughters. One of the daughters had cancer. He visisted her in the hopstial.