Member-only story
Memories Of My First Scar
Your scars are always there
I was so eager to help. To join my father and my uncle in making house repairs. The work was going on in the basement. They had their toolbox there and there was a lot of banging and swearing and fixing whatever it was with the plumbing that was causing the kitchen sink to back up and to leak.
I watched in fascination trying to learn how to do these things and be a grownup too.
I was four and a half years old. It was just after Christmas in St. Louis, Mo. I had on my brand-new cowboy boots that Santa brought me for Christmas.
I was squatting on the basement floor peering between the two adults as they worked on the pipes. My father turned to me and said, “Can you run upstairs and turn on the water in the kitchen sink to see if it’s running?”
Eagerly, I clunked up the stairs in my boots, and turned on the water. “It’s running!” I exclaimed.
“What?” They couldn’t hear me. Excited with my role in the repair, I rushed to go back down with the news.
My new cowboy boots caught the heel on the second step, and I tumbled, literally, head over heels to the bottom where my head came in violent contact with the cement floor of the basement.
