Healing Scars

The sun dipped below the horizon as it finished its assault on the beach. The white hot sand cooled as the gulls danced in the early-evening sea breeze.  The tranquil Gulf transitioned from a clear aqua blue to a murkier dark cyan.  Most of the tourists had packed their lobster-red sunburned skin in for the day and were headed to Destin’s numerous seafood restaurants.  Jimmy looked out the condo’s sliding glass door and knew it was his time to play.

Like a child forced to stay inside and practice violin while the other kids played, Jimmy had to sit inside and watch the rest of his family enjoy the beach.  He was like a fork in the microwave when he was on the beach.

Jimmy was a malignant melanoma survivor.  Not long out of surgery, his family knew they needed to support him — so they took him, a man with the most fatal form of skin cancer, to the beach.

Jimmy told them if they really wanted to kill him that a gun would be cheaper than a condo.

His primary melanoma was on his back, leaving a seven inch scar where the mole and surrounding skin was removed.  He also had eight other moles removed and had a sentinel node biopsy to make sure that the cancer had not spread.  Jimmy was covered in scars. He looked like he had run naked though a briar patch.  “I fought pirates,” he told his son.

“All your scars are on your back. Were you running away?” his son answered.

Truthfully, Jimmy had been running away. He was running from the absolute fear his brush with morality had brought. The physical pain from the surgery paled (the irony of that word) in comparison to the anxiety brought on by melanoma.  It was a disease that liked to come back.  And Jimmy had gone into a tail spin fearing that it would.

That was why he was inside the condo. His parents and brother and sister were out playing the sand all day. He was watching Dr. Phil.

But now it was his time. After 4 p.m., the sun’s rays were less intense. He knew he could go swim safely.  His feet skipped across the boards across then dune and then into the sugary sand.  Cherishing the moment, he felt every grain slipping through his toes.

As Jimmy approached the water’s edge, he took off his shirt. He threw it down onto the sand and started running into the surf.  Six feet away, a mother and two little girls were playing.  All three swiveled their heads and stared directly at Jimmy’s bright-red grotesque scars.  Jimmy stopped for a moment and paused. The mother knew she had been busted and started to turn her head away.

Jimmy’s eyes began to water.

He paused for a moment and then put his hand on his main scar. The mother nodded and said meekly, “I’m sorry.”

“You mean this?” Jimmy said sadly.

The lady nodded again.

Jimmy looked her right in the eye and said, “It’s OK. It was a shark attack and it happened right where your daughters are swimming.”

Color drained from the lady’s face as she scooped her girls out the water and ran back onto the beach.  Jimmy smiled a slight, impish smile.

He knew he had two choices.  He could be offended or he could make a joke.  He went with a joke — one that he has been telling for nearly ten years now.

Jimmy learned that day if you can laugh at what scares you, you’ll be a lot better off.  He watched the lady and her daughters head back to the condo complex. And then he dove into the surf and felt the salt burn his skin.

Jimmy, the melanoma survivor, had never felt more alive in his life.