Virescit Vulnere Virtus

As long as I could remember my Dad had this wooden plaque on the wall. It had a carving of a bird feeding its young against a Tartan background. I could see our name written in fancy scroll, the rest was some Latin that I could not understand. Virescit Vulnere Virtus. I asked my Dad and he said it meant Courage grows strong at a wound. I was 6 or 7 and it had no meaning. A few years later I was playing soccer and my Dad was our coach. He had played semi pro in Scotland and was a very fast winger we all respected. We had a practice game with an older team, a big deal when your 9. We were way out of our class and we were not only losing but we were getting laughed at and beaten. I saw a chance and went for the ball, I managed to get by one guy after another even though they kept on taking cheap shots at me. I was within a few feet of the goal line when I took another hit and loss the ball, my shins were stinging and I was red faced and then I got up and went after the ball again. I got it back, kicked it up the field and one of our guys put it in the net.

I had never felt like  that before, so strong and without fear, my Dad said to me when we got home and saw the blood soaked socks from my shins and he said “Courage grows strong at the wound”
I have been guilty of forgetting that feeling, now I try and remind myself. My wife wrote me a note filled with reminders of who I am, who she married who I said I wanted to be.
I’m not sure why we humans are  here any more then anyone else,but I have decided for me its to become a better person. My story that I continue to repeat in these posts because I need to remind myself of what I want. As a guitar player I tune my guitar first before I start to play, I play for a bit and sometimes I find my guitar has gone out of tune, I stop and retune. This is what I do in life, I stop and check to see if I’m still in tune.


Little update to this story: I went and got a tattoo of the Clan crest and altered it a bit with a Lion Rampant to celebrate turning 50 and my life, my youngest son is turning 21 and he also chose to get the clan crest and his is right of the plaque I grew up with.