Scars, by Phillip Hoyle

I’ve been lucky to live 68 years with almost no scars. As a result of that I don’t much relate to this topic even though after many years think I can still identify the scar Jeanetta Olson left on the back of my hand from a fingernail cut. I don’t recall the occasion except that it happened in the car during one of our families’ many trips to Topeka to see Dr. Peuzit. Jeanetta and my sister Christy both doctored with him due to polio. The scar now may be obscured by an age spot.

For some years I sported a scar on one of my fingers due to a cut I got from wrangling with a 16mm film take-up reel when I was working as a student minister at Central Christian Church, Wichita, KS. My wife Myrna was helping me to stop the flow of blood from the cut. When Dr. Parrish, the senior minister, came out of his study to help with a bottle of Witch Hazel, we saw Myrna sink to the floor and almost faint. I held my own paper towel bandage while Dr. Parrish worked with her. After that I was always properly careful around projectors and aware that Myrna might easily faint in any medical situation.

I do have stretch marks in the skin around both of my knees, scars due to having dislocated them. I always felt they seemed like nothing when compared with my wife’s proud stretch marks for having born two children.

In my psychic life I have suffered little pathos, so I have little of that kind of scarring. Still, I have become aware of a price I paid due to the many years of living in the closet. I also am aware that if I stay in this storytelling group for another five years, I may uncover scars of various kinds, even if it is only a callus on my right middle finger from writing stories so intensely every morning to have something ready to read. Also I am aware of the slight possibility that I may have so many scars on my feelings so deep that I cannot distinguish touched from untouched. There are a few scars from medical procedures of the last year and a half. Probably from now on in my ageing life I will be able to add a scaring episode or two from these kinds of new experiences every year. Perhaps I will eventually have a book out of them. I hope not.

Denver, ©22 June 2015

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com