Page 41 - WTP Vol. V #1

and then be revised, cut, rewritten. Despite all my surgeries and all of hers, there is no guaran- tee that we will not have more. In fact, for her, a nerve reinnervation surgery is on the horizon to sever the nerve to her left vocal fold paralyzed by her PDA ligation, and rejoin the fold with a functional nerve elsewhere in her neck. Ideally, this would enable close-to-normal swallowing function. It would attempt to resolve an early cut with a later cut. In terms of storytelling, a revision.
her. The story I have written of her skin notes how something as gossamer and tenuous as tis- sue paper has held all of our lives together. I sup- pose in the end, the tissue was just as thick and sturdy as it needed to be. Neither of us will ever know what it feels like to live without scar tissue, to not have it mark us and guide us and guide the way that others interact with us. We were born with scars. We were born of scars. Because of our scars, we live.
Adapted from Scars: An Anthology published and edited by Wood. Her work has been featured in The Best American Essays, Tales from the South, Glimmer Train, and The Healing Muse.
The story I have written of our daughter’s scars is one I cannot separate from the ways that our family has been scarred and healed along with
Gathering Light 7
Oil/cold wax medium on canvas 60'' x 60''
By Janice Mason Steeves