“Healing a Fat Lip”


Yesterday after noon I was sitting in Jessica’s living room watching television with her after I helped her with some yard work. Our afternoon was interrupted by banging on the front door. A young girl came to the door and panicky, told Jessica that her son Jonas was playing with her and he fell hard and had gotten hurt. A few moments later, as I sat wondering how bad the injury was going to be I saw Jessica carrying Jonas back to the house as he cried terribly, bleeding from his mouth. Jessica sat him on the chair and ran a wash cloth under cold water and gave it to Jonas to hold on his bottom lip. After a moment or two and realizing from our perspective as outsiders to the injury that it was not bad and nothing serious, just a little cut and maybe a fat lip, we sat on the couch and Jonas began watching TV with us occasionally letting our a painful cry or sniffle as so no one forgot that he had gotten hurt playing with his friend.

He asked Jessica, “when is it going to heal mom?” To which Jessica replied, “it could take a while, but you have had a fat lip before you’ll be ok”. He described his swollen lip as feeling “big”. But after about ten minutes, he had declared his lip “little again” and he was ready to go play again.

I guess for any mom, this is a nearly weekly occurrence and one that is brushed aside, as one of life’s little injuries. But I, in my over-analytical mind was fascinated by the simplicity of a young mind and his unwillingness to let this minor injury stop him from playing. Its funny how everyone other than the injured person can see how minor the injury is, but when you are the one hurt, it’s the worst thing in the world and sometimes you need someone to carry you away and give you a cold towel to help the sting.

We have all fallen hard and been hurt at least once “playing with friends”, and when the hurt comes it can shatter your world, no matter how everyone on the outside can see how minor it is, and how it should heal fine, it hurts and often we are left with a fat lip. The main difference here is that after we are hurt and we let our friends and family run a towel under water for us trying to ease that pain that we feel, we never let our fat lip heal, or overlook it anxious to go back out and play. We bite at it, as a constant reminder of how we got hurt last time and refuse to go back out and enjoy our playtime before the street lights come on. We miss out on whatever fun may come our way that day, just because we are scared of falling again and getting hurt… again.

Maybe everyone could learn from Jonas and his “big lip” with his optimism of him feeling it become “little” again. After all we’ve all had “fat lips” before and we’ll be ok. Maybe most of us have been sitting on the recliner with a towel to our mouth for far too long now and we need to realize that our lip is “little” again and we should go back out and play. I know I’ve been on that recliner for about a year now nursing a fat lip that my mom and family and friends saw as a blessing. Maybe we should all lose the cold towel, declare our lips “little” again, and head back outside. After all, who knows what new kids may have moved onto your street since you’ve been on the recliner?