Explaining myself to my child

Sometimes I forget that my kids don't really know me. I mean, realistically, my son has maybe two good years of memories of me. I've known him his whole life, so I figure that must mean he knows my whole life too.

But he just noticed my scar. I've had it his whole life. He used to caress it with his fingers sometimes as he would nurse. He used to tell me that my chest was lumpy because the wires that hold together my breastbone would hurt his head when he laid down on me. He doesn't remember that, I guess. He just all of a sudden a few weeks ago wanted to know why I had that big line on my chest.

So I told him. I had a bad heart when I was born, and when I was older they had to fix it. I didn't want to gross him out, but he really wanted to know how they got to it. I explained to him how they had to use a knife and cut the skin, then take a saw (like Daddy has in the garage? COOL) to cut through the bone, then fix the heart, then wire the bones together, then staple the skin together, and all that left a scar where the cut was.

The fact that I had another person actually touch my heart just elevated my cool factor by about fifteen points to my son. This week in gym they learned all about the heart and lungs and Marc made sure his teacher knew all about how the walls of my heart were broken and the red and blue blood mixed together and it made me tired and sick all the time until they PULLED MY HEART RIGHT OUT OF MY CHEST and then sewed it back up. (I think the teacher thought he was making it all up.)

Marc asked me if I was scared to be in the hospital and to get all those shots. I told him yes, I was. I was very scared and it hurt a lot. He asked if daddy stayed with me in the hospital, but I told him it was before I knew daddy, so my mom and dad stayed with me the whole time.

Every couple days now he'll ask another question. Was there lots of blood? (yes) What happened to the staples? (they took them out) Is there something wrong with my heart too? (no, we had you checked when you were a baby) Do the wires hurt? (no, just make a little bump under the skin)

It's been thirteen years since my surgery and I don't think about it much any more. I usually forget that I even have a scar. I was self-conscious about it at first but with time, I just got so used to it that I'd wear low cut shirts without even noticing it in the mirror. But I was surprised at how vivid the memories still were.

I remember the painting on the wall opposite my bed (Toulouse-Lautrec) and my mother having to hand-wash all the betadyne out of my hair and getting the hiccups for three days straight and the first time I looked down and realized my toenails were PINK (they'd been purple for as long as I remember). My son was fascinated by all these things. But mostly, he was fascinated by the idea that I had a life before his life started.