Worth a Thousand Words: Growth Beyond Trauma
Written by Carolyn Mae Kim on October 21, 2021
My little boy became a burn survivor at just eight months of age. The days immediately following the accident were filled with incredible uncertainty, traumatic pain for my kiddo, and heart-wrenching moments. As a parent, I was guilt-ridden and full of shame that the tiny little one I was to protect ended up in the Burn ICU needing surgery to recover. The thought of a lifetime facing this reality crippled me.
It’s been nearly four years since that day, but it continues to be a defining moment for our family.
The reality is, our little guy does not remember the burn, life in the BICU, surgery, wearing pressure garments, the many doctor visits, or anything else that occurred so early on in his life. While my husband and I remember the events like they were yesterday, our little one has only ever known life as a burn survivor. At four years of age, he is incredibly articulate, loves to explore, and wants to make meaning of his experiences and the world around him. This means, despite having no memory of the events, he asks about them quite frequently when he looks at his burn and compares his reality to that of his friends.
Each day is met with genuine questions: Do all kids have burns? Will I always look like this? Why was I burned? Where were you when I was burned? Did I cry? Did it hurt a lot? and so many more. Learning to respond and navigate these questions is critical, as it helps him embrace his story and understand his experience.
As he enters this new stage of developmental growth, I want to do more than tell him the story of what happened and how he recovered. I desperately want him to see his bravery, courage, and tenacity when he makes meaning of his experience. I aspire to help him see how his character was shaped in the midst of such a painful experience. So I decided to create a unique project to mark his four-year burn anniversary.
Making Meaning
Since the day my little one was born, he has been attached to “Big Elephant,” a large, stuffed animal that he takes everywhere. Their relationship (and the stories he tells about their adventures) is quite similar to Calvin and Hobbes. We found an artist who was able to capture this feeling, and we commissioned four art pieces. Each one focuses on a component of our son’s character, and it also tells a “story” about him and Big Elephant (since little kids love to learn through storytelling).
The first picture shows our family under a tree with one burned branch. The rest of the tree is full of life and thriving. Wallace makes a wish and looks forward expectantly, using the hand that was burned—with compression garment on—to blow the flower for his wish. The picture shows that he has faith in things unseen. This is something he learned through pain.
The second image displays how, even when things are shaking all around him, he can confidently and boldly face what is ahead. For him, that usually means facing whatever it is with a contagious laugh at full speed!
The third picture emphasizes adventurous courage, for his own story and journey, but also for others. From his burn, he has developed a deep empathy for others, a capacity to speak for those who are perhaps unseen, and to sit with those who are in pain themselves. He is young, but this experience has left him with a profound courage that we hope only grows in the days ahead as he continues to make meaning of his experience.
Finally, the fourth image depicts transformation. Caterpillars and cocoons (seen in the background) undertake a holistic change before emerging with wings to soar. When our son reflects on his story, we always want him to see the transformation and growth—not simply a scar and pain.
These images provide a powerful connection between experiences that our son has no direct memories of and his success in making meaning of his identity.
What made this experience even more impactful for us was discovering that the artist, Kip Henderson, was an infant burn survivor also. After learning this, our son was looking at the images one day and asked if he would be able to grow up and make art like Kip.
In that moment, I saw my little one make meaning of his identity as a burn survivor. He saw that he, too, could create, innovate, encourage, and inspire. Kip became a role-model for him: not just as an incredible artist, but as a burn survivor who is thriving.
These images ended up doing more than simply helping our son understand his character, they connected him with role models in the burn community. Kip also shared the impact of working on this project—
The goal of this art series was to celebrate a new season of life, vigor, and adventure. These themes are incredibly important to me, because an individual can still bear the marks of a tragedy and experience a full and joyous life.
—Kip Henderson, artist + burn survivor
The goal in this was to help our little guy understand his story. However, I found that, as a parent who has also attempted to make meaning of our burn experience, this process also helped me make sense of our story and my story as a burn survivor parent.
Post-Traumatic Growth
In the months that followed the burn injury, I navigated helping our little guy while also dealing with my own PTSD due to the trauma. Recently, I’ve been learning not just about post-traumatic stress, but also about post-traumatic growth. There is a lot of research to support the trauma that parents of burn survivors experience. The reality of our own trauma is something we parents sometimes feel guilty about, since we want to keep the focus on our children and support their healing.
The aftermath of a child’s burn can be some of the darkest and hardest times parents will ever face. Our understanding of the world and the foundations we operated with (safety, confidence for the future, assurance in our ability as parents, etc.) seem to be shattered. Rebuilding our world takes time, just as the healing for our children will take time.
Post-traumatic growth, or learning and thriving after trauma, can be marked by several common things, according to research, such as:
awareness of personal strength
appreciation for life
improved relationship with others
openness to new possibilities
spiritual growth
I had moments when any one of those areas would have seemed impossible, let alone all of them. If I’m honest, there are still days that are much harder than others. However, as I stare at the image of our family under the tree, with our little guy and Big Elephant wishfully looking toward the future, I realize this: our story, like my little one’s, is also one of resiliency, boldness, determination, and grit.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I could not agree more. Every time I see the images, I remember not simply what happened, but the meaning it has brought into our family’s identity. While these art pieces were initially designed to help my little one make meaning of his courageous story, they ended up contributing to the understanding of our entire family’s identity and the role of the burn in our story. It’s not simply one of loss, trauma, and pain. It’s one of strength, tenacity, healing, and thriving too.
Help Your Child Build Confidence with SARA'S STEPS
Using Sara's story as a guide, help kids develop skills to feel more confident talking about their own or their loved one’s burn injury in social situations.