I have an old turtle shell, bleached white by the sun, that I found near a canal in Florida and now sits displayed on a shelf in my home. Larger than a football, it must once have been a whopping snapping turtle, the terror of the canal that could relieve you of a finger if you ever messed with it.
(Photo by TR Kerth)
The shell is hard as cement, but at the top is a small crack, maybe an inch long. Embedded next to the crack is a round object almost the size of a dime. Turn the shell over and youāll see a curious bulge on the inside of the shell just under the crack, and another one on the other side, about four inches away, evidence that the shell must once have been punctured and later healed.
The round object next to the crack in the shell is a tooth, snapped off when the turtle managed to escape from a hungry gator ā how many years ago?
Itās a reminder that, in Florida, everything wants to kill you. Florida teems with death dealers ā gators, panthers, sharks, bears, fire ants, the NRA and more. There are also armadillos that donāt want to kill you, but they can carry leprosy, that does.
With death looming around every corner, itās a wonder why anyone would ever want to visit Florida. I spend a lot of time there, trying to figure it out.
But I love my old tooth-tortured turtle shell because itās a reminder that survival is still possible, even with the odds stacked against you.
Some people fill their shelves with tiny pretty things ā glittering glass, shapely vases, candles, books, boxes and beads. Not me. I tend toward carcasses, metaphors for stubborn survival. Go ahead, call me strange, but at my home I display a bleached turtle shell prominently on a shelf because to me it is both an inspiration and a thing of beauty.
I donāt know if I would display a turtle shell on my shelf if it were perfect and undamaged. Yes, the shell is beautiful and shapely in and of itself, but to me it is the crack, the healing scars and the broken tooth that have earned a valued spot in my home. A shell is just a shell, but a shell that healed around a broken gator tooth is a turtle with a tale to tell.
Itās like that with the scars in our own lives, isnāt it? Each is a reminder of a brush with misfortune that left its mark, and the mark should serve as inspiration.
It is a mistake to feel shame or embarrassment over our scars, to hide them, to erase them with cosmetics or surgery. Rather, they should be valued and honored as sentences and paragraphs in the saga of our lives. They are reminders that nobody ever promised us that life would be easy, only that we will find a way to get through lifeās assaults and heal well enough to face the next assault.
That was a lesson my parents taught me whenever things went sideways and I felt sorry for myself. And it was hard to argue with them, because they were members of the Greatest Generation, who stared down the Great Depression, World War II, polio and more. My dad fought as a soldier in New Caledonia, and he came home with plenty of scars, both physical and spiritual. My mom lost a baby to substandard medical treatment, and came away with hepatitis C from an infected transfusion.
But they never complained or whined that it wasnāt fair that they had such burdens to bear. Each burden left its scar, and each scar was a badge of honor for their strength and resilience.
By the end they were scarred old turtles who limped along side by side until the very end, and I loved them all the more because of the scars they bore without embarrassment or complaint. I am sure they would rather not have had to face such horrific assaults, but having faced them, they honored the scars left behind. It is a lesson I learned from them as I honor the scars of my most horrific assaults that could not be wished away.
The last couple years have been rough, havenāt they? Sometimes it seems as if everything wants to kill you, from Covid to the climate. Sometimes it seems as if our shell is going to crack under the pressure. For many of us, in many ways, it already has.
But a new year is upon us, and although there is no telling if it will be better or worse, for me it pays to reflect upon an old turtle shell with a broken gator tooth embedded in it.
Life is hard.
It may get harder yet.
Carry on.
TR Kerth is the author of the book āRevenge of the Sardines.ā Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com.
