A constant reminder

My wife and I took her 12-year-old and Sam to the home of some friends on New Years Eve. It was a nice get-together - homemade pizza, games, conversation, no alcohol. I don't think I heard one cuss-word the whole evening.

What I did hear, though, was something I'm coming to hate: "What happened to Sam's cheek?"

They were youth football friends, and we hadn't seen them since early November - before I let Sam fall on a shopping cart, strapped into a backpack, leaving a linear dent in his cheek.

Then today, I was going through pictures my nephew took at our family reunion, a three-day David-palooza. There were several absolutely gorgeous ones of my baby boy with his big brown eyes - marred by that valley carved into his skin.

I'm starting to really hate this.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about taking him to the pediatrician, who recommended we go to Children's Hospital. At that point I was worried about what they might have to do to fix it, and the scars it might leave on his memory.

What we heard at Children's was not very encouraging, though. Basically, the doctor said, there is nothing they can do surgically - there are too many nerves to cut the cheek open from the inside, and cutting in from the outside would do little good and would leave a scar itself.

Given that Sam is only just two, it could largely go away on its own, he said. But we wouldn't really know for a year or so.

His recommendation: Massage it vigorously six to eight times a day to help break up the tissue. Then see how it is in a year.

Yes, a year.

Of course, Sam went absolutely ballistic the first time I massaged his cheek. I think it's probably still sore. The second time, he let his body go limp, flopping to the floor to get away from my hands. After a couple of days of that, I pretty much gave up - it's like I'm torturing him. My wife, meanwhile, barely did it once.

So on top of the permanent guilt I have for dropping him in the first place, I now have an unpleasant choice: Do I hold him down and massage it, risking emotional scars to get rid of the physical one? Or do I let it be, knowing that 10 years from now I might be looking at this mar on my growing child and wondering if I could have done more to get rid of it?

In the grand scheme of things, of course, this could be a thousand times worse. I can't imagine how I'd feel if I had a car accident that left my child paralyzed.

It also does not compare to people dealing with special needs children, or those with dread diseases. My daughter is diabetic, and I'd put 100 scars on her to take that away.

But it hurts every time I look at it.

Brian David/Oct. 29, 2008