As you may know from previous posts, I like to look at trees as I’m out bummeling around the walking trail. One day I happened to notice the tree in this photograph, and it made me think.
L.A.D. and K.M. loved each other enough to carve evidence of that fact in the bark of this tree. When they carved their sign, it hurt the tree. But the tree healed and is healthy, although the marks are still there. The marks will be there for a long time. It is a young tree, but there’s no telling how long they’ve been there already. Maybe L.A.D and K.M. have grown apart and forgotten their love. But the scars they left behind remain.
I think that we all have scars. To some degree we can all think of people who carved themselves into our lives. We’ve healed, but the scars remain and those scars make us who we are. In a lot of ways the scars of past loves and people make us unique. This tree would be just another tree if it did not bear its scars.
And here’s the thing – we leave scars as well as receive them. We carve and are carved upon. We are constantly influencing and being influenced by the people around us.
Today is Valentine’s Day, so maybe it’s not appropriate to be talking about scars and love in the same post. But Cupid shoots you with an arrow, doesn’t he? And that arrow can definitely hurt. Sometimes the arrow gets pulled out, and that hurts even more. Sometimes you yank it out yourself. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like the wound will ever heal, but eventually it does if we let it. We may still see the scars, but the scars are what make us who we are.
So on this Valentine’s Day, please enjoy the people that you love and those who love you. Enjoy them as they are making themselves a part of your life. And if you, like me, have scars, then remember that they make you both beautiful and unique.
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