Below are a few of the scars men of Mentor Discover Inspire were willing to share with a public audience. Everyone has one form of scar or another, having lived a full life, so far. Here is a sampling, revealed freely and in trust.
Dylan Stewart
My greatest scar was an emotional one. It was left when my daughter’s mother committed suicide 25 years ago. The wound prevented me from trusting myself, from trusting love, and from trusting women.
I have finally healed that wound, now seeing it as a great gift that teaches me the lesson of listening to my inner voice, to trusting myself, and to loving myself first. Now I know if a relationship to somebody goes awry, I do not also get lost in the process.
Bryce Honstead
On Tuesday, I was unloading wood from my truck, while talking on the phone. As the wood slipped off the top of my truck, a shard of the wood entered into the top of my right wrist. Just sliced right in there. I thought at first it was just going to be a flesh splinter, but after 30 minutes of time where my wife tried to pull it out of there (and turning white), we both knew it went deeper. Turns out it was about an inch deep into the next layer beyond the fascia. Two days later, a doctor friend of mine had some fun digging into my wrist, blood everywhere, joking “don’t pull on that vein,” and finally pulling that piece of splintered wood out of there. As I felt it leaving my body, I felt this giant weight lifting off of me. Oh yeah, it’s going to create a scar.
Jmarshall Stein
Motocross accident – learn to respect the machine and life.
Paul Weiler
I have a half-inch scar in the middle of my forehead. One day my older brother was swinging a golf club, and ask me not to stand too close to him. He nailed me on the back swing. All I remember is being carried to the house and seeing my blood spilled on his back. I think I survived.
Andy Resnik
I do have scars – one from accidentally almost slicing my heel off in a bicycle spoke.
Willy Holt
I was laying tile for a job in 1978, for a fountain out in front of the condos called Taco Towers in Coronado. As I was climbing out of the fountain under construction, I slipped and scrapped my right leg on the edge. The scar is somehow still there 41 years later.
Ke Sneller
I have two prominent scars. Both were from my history in martial arts. I used to do demonstration with live blades. At one point I was practicing with the sickle, and I swung it across my body and just grazed my left triceps. It barely bled but it left a pretty prominent scar. The other scar is on my left eyebrow. I was practicing sparring with a buddy. And I caught a knuckle on my left eyebrow and it split open. I got four stitches on the inside and 10 stitches on the outside. Ironically, I fought bare-knuckle full contact karate in the mid-90s on the world level, and never got any major injuries.
Sandt Litchfield
I got nine stitches from what my doctor and I thought was skin cancer. Fortunately it turned out to be benign.
Matt Coddington
I have a scar. The scar is abetting in two abortions. I got the scars from being complicit in aborting two pregnancies with a long ago girlfriend because I wanted to have fun with sex but was too immature to deal with the consequences, take on the responsibility of fatherhood, marriage, and speaking to my mother, and the girlfriend’s parents. Those children could have been the deepest loves of my life, but I’ll never know. I talked with my ex-girlfriend when I was living in Las Vegas many years after the fact. She was married. She told me she couldn’t have children. Maybe it was because of the medical procedures. I don’t know. But I couldn’t apologize enough.
Bottom line is that I loved her.
Judah Buxton
When I was 8, I decided to run and jump down our front porch stairs, about five steps, blindfolded. When it was all over I had eight stitches in my knee and a new respect for concrete. It didn’t stop me from climbing and jumping and being reckless at times, but I now always look before I leap.