Scars

This week, the Lifeline interns drove out to Burton, Texas to work as counselors at Camp Star Trails, a summer camp for kids with cancer and their siblings. On paper, it's identical to any other summer camp: canoes, archery, swimming, sunscreen, jokes, nicknames, traditions. And most of the kids act like kids, but they all have difficult stories of spending too much time in hospitals and working around the collateral damage of cancer (i.e. financial troubles, stress, etc.). Many of the staff volunteers are former campers who can relate especially well.

A small percentage of the people at Camp Star Trails carry very noticeable scars from what they've experienced: amputated limbs, deep torso gashes from surgeries, or general listlessness from exhausting chemo treatments. These marks are common enough at camp that they stop shocking you after the first day, but there always remains that morbid curiosity: what happened to that person that resulted in such a scar? I often had to fight the temptation to ask people what they had suffered.

I am very lucky that my scars—those painful experiences in my life that have contributed to the person I am today—are invisible. In fact, if I try hard enough, I can convince people that I don't have any scars at all. Most of us are pretty good at keeping up appearances, so we never have to talk about our scars; we never have to talk frankly about those bad experiences that shaped us. Unfortunately, people with visible scars don't have that luxury, since their scars are on display for the world to see and ponder and theorize about.

It takes a lot of courage and trust for me to talk about my scars, and with that in mind, I need to be as good of a steward of other people's baggage as I can. When I visit patients in the hospital, very often they are at their worst. They aren't wearing makeup, they haven't shaved, or they may not be very clean. Moreover, they may be undergoing something significant and potentially life-altering; it is an experience that leaves scars on them, even if they are invisible scars.

When I draw attention to another person's scars and ask him or her to open up about them, I am treading in very sacred territory.