What Lies Beneath?

Photo Credit: jenny downing via Compfight cc

Last week my daughter Emilia had minor surgery on her face. A little piece of gravel that had embedded itself deep in her cheek finally had to be cut out.

The tiny rock had been there since Emilia was three or four. One minute she was swinging delightedly, Grandma pushing her. The next minute she just let go, and dropped face-first onto the gravel. Grandma was horrified. (To be fair, Emilia has always had a love-hate relationship with swings: she loves them and they hate her.)

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Accidents like these happen often in childhood, and after we cleaned up the scrapes there didn’t seem to be any lasting harm done (other than Grandma’s poor conscience.) No one noticed that little piece of rock beginning to burrow its way into my sweet girl’s soft cheek.

Years passed and the only sign of the foreign object was the littlest hole to the right of Emilia’s mouth. Not a deep hole, but the kind that looked like a chicken pox scar. For the longest time that’s what I thought it was.

When Emilia got old enough to start wearing makeup, she noticed the mark and it bothered her. Sometimes she would pick at it, and push on it, finally discovering that she could feel something deep inside. We asked our doctor about it, but he wanted to leave it alone, figuring the scar to remove it would be worse than the little hole.

Being an impulsive teenage girl, one day she decided to try and remove the object herself with a needle. That attempt ended up with a swollen, infected bump on her face and a trip to the emergency room. The doctor said she should see a plastic surgeon to get the gravel removed properly. That led us to last week’s surgery.

Finally we were taking it seriously and removing that long embedded foreign body from Emilia’s face. It had been there for so many years, neglected and unnoticed. A small wound that had become a part of her, never really healing. It reminded me of all the things that we like to cover over in our lives.

Sometimes our offenses and bitterness or the little things that upset us seem small enough that we don’t bother to deal with them. Instead of removing them from our hearts and minds, we just cover over them, letting them burrow deeper into our being. There they become a part of us that we can’t even feel.

Cutting out the piece of gravel was much more painful for Emilia than leaving it where it was. The surgeon had to dig much deeper than expected, and the piece was larger than anyone thought. When it came out, it took some flesh with it. 

Truth be told, the scar will be bigger than the hole. But leaving a foreign body under her skin could lead to much more damage in the future than we could imagine. Now she is recovering, which is a painful process. But she looks forward to smooth skin with no imperfection under the surface that she knows is hiding and could cause untold problems down the road.

Digging out those bitter feelings, offenses, and hurts is painful, and harder than you might expect. Leaving them hiding underneath the surface lets them become a part of you. It is a wound that looks nearly invisible on the outside but never completely heals. Who knows the damage that could be caused if you leave those things to fester? If you take the time to carefully work your way down to the root and tear out those negative things, that wound will finally heal and be as clear and fresh as a baby’s cheek.

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Natural-Born Storytellers

Have you ever noticed that children are natural storytellers? They don't need a muse. Creativity just bubbles out of them.

Some little ones prefer to sing their stories. My sister was one of those. She would happily entertain us with melodies recounting the adventures of a particular balloon or flower. I was older and usually trying to read my own book; I wasn't as enthralled by her singing as I was mesmerized by the tales woven by the authors I loved. The grown-ups usually thought it was adorable. (It was.)

my son and niece (who looks just like her mother) as ninjas

If you've ever babysat, worked with children, or have friends with little ones you might have noticed their amazing abilities. I love to sit down with the ones I know and just listen to their stories. A well-placed question or two does wonders in unlocking their imaginations. Even children you've just met will quickly open up to an engaging smile and listening ear (in their parents' presence, of course.) A smile aimed at a bored child at a grocery store might result in an invitation into their imaginary world.

Once while shopping I kept bumping into a pair of preschoolers, a boy and a girl, who seemed to always be half a row ahead of their mother. The sister looked older and seemed to be the ringleader. They were hiding behind carts and baskets and jumping out at each other, their mother, and other shoppers. The little boy would smile at me as he passed, but the girl would only look at me cautiously. The third time I passed, by she grabbed his arm as he smiled at me again and whispered loudly, "She's one of the bad people!" He looked at me, puzzled, and said, "She doesn't look bad." So I raised my egyebrows and grinned mischievously at them. They both giggled gleefully and ran back to their mom. Any time I passed them again I received giggles and smiles from both.

my daughter in her imaginary world

The best little storyteller I've met in a while was a charming girl named Shae-Lynn. I met her and her mother when I was stuck spending a long evening in the emergency room with my daughter. Her mother was a lovely and friendly young woman who kept a watchful eye on Shae-Lynn while she made friends with the patients around her. There were seven or eight of us confined for several hours in a cubicle meant for one hospital bed, sitting in uncomfortable chairs. It was late and crowded, and the wait would have been dreadful without our little entertainer.

First she decided that she was a restaurant doctor. Yes, a restaurant doctor. We were served imaginary food and had our injuries attended to by Shae-Lynn. We were quite happy to play along. Sometimes she was the doctor/server. Sometimes she was the patient. On the wall there were boxes of purple surgival gloves. They bewitched her. First she wore a pair while "examining" us. Even the smallest size flopped off the ends of her little hands. Then she tried her best to persuade the rest of us to wear them. When that bored her, she was easily convinced to sing songs for us. Her mother was obviously proud of Shae-Lynn's precocious and still well mannered behavior.

my son immersed in a book

After the songs I asked Shae-Lynn to tell us a story. She was quite happy to invent one for us. My daughter Emilia was a part of our little imaginary world, too, so the main characters of her story were Emilia, Shae-Lynn's mom, and me. Since she loved the movie Frozen, she named me Princes Anna (declaring that I had the right color hair to be Anna). She decided her mother should be Princess Amma (not to be confused with Princess Anna), and Emilia she named Princess Rose (which pleased Emilia because her best friend's middle name is Rose). It was a lovely, rambling story. We climbed up a high mountain, there was a Prince, one of the Princesses got angry and the other Princesses had to go find her. Eventually she gave us a happy ending.

Not only did the time fly by while we listenend, but this sweet girl made all the sick, sad people trapped in that little room feel better. It took us out of our painful reality for a little while. We lost ourselves in her imagination. And that's what true storytellers do, whatever their age.