My mom loved me, I just wanted to state that. I was a difficult kid, hyper, high on coffee, never slept (see coffee) but she was a single mom and with no support. In no way do I condone striking, hitting or any other kind of physical act towards children or anyone else for that matter however I come from a time when a clip around the ear, a smack, the cane or the slipper were all accepted methods of disciplining children. I want to point out, that it doesn’t work, I have experienced all of those punishments and it just taught me how to be smarter at hiding things, justified lying and stopping kids from sharing and communicating. I just got used to it and bunched up all my feelings inside until I stopped making a sound when I felt pain, even in my adult life.
My dad was a journalist and they shared a love of the written word, both with amazing vocabulary and the ability to spell anything, my Mom’s handwriting was immaculate. Ironically I’m dyslexic with the handwriting skills of a German shepherd, without computers writing anything would be beyond me.
Mom was trying to read a paper, a broadsheet I think, and I wanted attention. She was taking a moment, grabbing a break where she could and I was climbing all over her, pulling at the paper. She didn’t often get a paper, I’m sure she’d been given this one, probably a few days old, but she loved to read.
So I was climbing, pushing, grabbing and yelling and being a difficult 4-year-old. I always had a strong, stocky build I think I get from my Welsh ancestry and some days I’d stack the big chairs that matched the sofa on top of it to create a spaceship cockpit I could sit inside… sorry Mom. So after this had gone on a while my Mon finally lost her temper and pushed me, not a soft push, that would have had no effect, but a hard push which propelled me head-first off the arm of the sofa towards the matching chair and the wooden inlay that was on the front of the arm.
There was a LOUD crack and I heard Mom scream and I started crying. I don’t remember pain but I do remember the blood running into my right eye and being picked up, turned around and rushed into the kitchen. She sat me on a wooden dining chair and grabbed a towel, wiping the blood out of my eye and pressing it against my eyebrow. She was constantly saying sorry, apologising and sounding upset, which was not typical for my Mom, she rarely panicked. I was calming down and just wanted a hug.
She asked me to sit on the chair and hold the towel on my head, she was just going down into the shop to call my Uncle Eric, who was a first aider and ask his advice on what to do next. I said ok and she left me sitting, head back, on the chair. I could hear her go down the stairs and I sat there, every now and then she’d shout to ask if I was ok and I think I’d say yes. Then I heard her talking on the phone in the shop, we didn’t have a phone and I was getting fidgety so I lifted the towel off my head and no blood ran down my face, I jumped off the chair and headed down the stairs. I made her jump, and she then told Uncle Eric I had come down the stairs and seemed fine, no bleeding now. No idea what he said but I think they spoke and joked about me being fine then and she put the phone down and took me back upstairs.
I was tired now, time for a kip, but I was fine.
The next morning, which I think was Monday as the shop was closed when all this had happened, she took me to the doctors who took a good look at the cut and put on butterfly plasters just as a precaution, which I thought sounded cool. Not easy to see what butterfly plasters look like on your own eyebrow so he gave me one to study, I didn’t really see the resemblance. He told Mom that there would most likely be a scar and I should have gone to the hospital to get it checked out, I’d have probably had stitches, always seemed a bit strange seeing as I’d stopped bleeding naturally. She had to tell him how it happened because I was a gobby little sod who would have corrected her if she’d told him anything different, I know that was difficult for her, I think it was the first time I remember her being scared of anything, she was a fierce 5ft tall when roused.
So it did scar, it’s still visible now at nearly 60 and I think it’s probably the most interesting thing about my face if I’m honest.