Most scars heal on the surface, serving as reminders of not-so-gentle events in our lives.

Others run much deeper.

I have a scar on my upper lip that looks like a fish skeleton. Then there are others such as the one on the side of my leg from that wintery day when a shy little boy stood too close to the furnace in the barber shop downtown.

Mama was oblivious to the flame burning me, probably because she was busy directing bangs on my brothers Richard and John or shooing my brother Tony away from the bubble gum dispenser.

That scar reminds me to speak up when things get heated, literally or figuratively.

The summer before my senior year in high school, I got the chicken pox. Mama rubbed me down from head-to-toe with pink calamine lotion. It itched. I scratched. Now, I have a small round scar just above my eyebrow that reminds me of that miserable August, aged 17. Mama’s nursing and prayers must have worked because the spots had vanished when the first day of school arrived.

The wounds that dig deeper into the soul make the most lasting scars. It has been four years since my best friend opened her eyes and stared into mine for the last time. It still hurts. She was the first person I ever loved and the one who loved me even when I didn’t deserve it. Sometimes I can’t catch my breath even now.

Those scars are everywhere I look—her collection of perfumes that I take out and sniff every once in a while, the old photograph of us sharing vanilla ice cream cones, anything I see in the shade of coral she loved so much. It occurs to me I have almost no memories from my first 40 years that don’t in some way revolve around loving her. Every first in my life happened alongside my mama, from watching for the tooth fairy, to winning the jump rope award, to the red sports car when I turned 15. She liked to ride in it—fast.

I try very hard to think of these soul scars as blessings. I look in the mirror at the scar on my lip and am thankful that Mama picked me up, dusted me off, and put me back together again when I fell from the neighbor’s Ford truck. I don’t remember when our house burned down, but I am told Mama wrapped me in a blanket and carried me in her arms, an infant, to safety with the roof falling down all around her.

Life gives us scars. Mothers help us heal, except when their loss is the reason for the scars. Those seem to be the hurts that nothing or no one can heal. Oh, they get better on the surface maybe, but then they itch. We scratch in spite of ourselves, and there they are again.

David Creel is a Vicksburg resident and writes a syndicated column. You may reach him at beautifulwithdavid@gmail.com.