Stitches in Time

When I was about three, I woke up one drizzly spring morning and decided I needed to wear a cape. And test my super powers. I cannot tell you why a three-year-old dressed in a polka-dotty dress and a calico cape was able to walk out of the house (and around the corner) without adult supervision. Perhaps mom was painting? The point is, I did. (I don't have a fat lip in this photo, so I think it was the Christmas before the events in this story took place.)

I have this surreal misty memory of opening the back door and stepping out into the cool drizzle. And skipping around the corner to my friend Kristine's house. Where we proceeded to jump off her porch into the bushes, testing out our capes. I think hers was a blue towel.

On one of my flying leaps I apparently slipped. And somehow caught my lip on a big nail somewhere. Ohhhh ... it was nasty. And loud. Kristine was screaming bloody murder. I probably was, too. I remember her mom running out of the house with a towel over her shoulder (she'd been washing the dishes). She took one look at me,  clamped the towel over my bleeding lip and ran around the corner with me in her arms to my mother. We only had one car, which my dad had taken to work. So another neighbor had to drive us to the hospital so I could get stitches.

This is where the memory gets a bit fuzzy. I remember the numbing stuff they put on my lip was very very bitter. I remember freaking out that the doctor was going to use what looked like a GIANT CURVED KNITTING NEEDLE to sew my lip back into place. And it was going to hurt and I thought maybe I would be just fine as is. I think my sister was on duty at the hospital that day and somehow found us in the ER. I also vaguely remember my brother being in a car accident and being wheeled in on a gurney right next to me. And my sister had to run frantically back and forth, tending to the two of us. But that might be mixed up with another memory. Perhaps they can help me sort that out? I was very young, after all.

My mom had - and a dear aunt has - stitches in the same spot - scars on the same side of our mouths. Connecting us like stitches in time.