the grief of a closed piercing

healing is hard

A few months back, my twins went to get their ears pierced. It was the first hole for one of them, a second hole for another — and a last-minute hole for me in the cartilage of my left ear in solidarity.

Revie, who is meticulous when it comes to hygiene — often to a fault — took impeccable care of her double-piercings and even still, one of the puncture holes got infected and then stayed infected for days and then weeks until she decided to remove the earring. It was painful and gross and nothing else was working.

She went back and forth on whether she should — knowing that removing an earring so soon after it was pierced would potentially result in its closure. But it wasn’t healing on its own with the earring still intact so…

The morning after she removed the earring, she tried to put it back in, heavy with regret that she had taken it out the day before.

But the stud wouldn’t go through.