I
was five years old and had no idea what had just happened to me. The only thing I remembered was being held in my mom’s arms and hearing her scream for help. The night sky turned orange as flames rose above the treetops.
By the time we made the four-hour journey to Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, my now-blackened face had swollen to the size of a watermelon. Two days passed before the doctors would say that I had a good chance of surviving. After weeks of intensive critical care, I regained consciousness, breathing through a tracheotomy tube. I thought I was blind, until I learned that my eyes had been bandaged shut.
When the day finally came to remove the bandages, it was nothing like the movies, where the injured person opens his or her eyes to see the vision of a loved one or a beautiful woman. My first vision was of a nurse, whose wrinkled face frightened me.
Looking back, I’m amazed that she wasn’t terrified of my face. As time passed, I came to know her as one of the most caring people I would ever meet.
After more weeks of surgeries, I finally had the strength and desire to get up and slowly make my way to the bathroom without assistance. After using the toilet, I noticed a reflection on the stainless-steel towel dispenser and saw my reflection. I hobbled back to my bed and lay down.
Everyone was quiet, but Mom knew what I had seen.
“It’s pretty bad isn’t it?” I asked her.
“Yes, Mike. It’s bad,” she said. “But you’re going to be just fine.” She hugged me gently and kissed my forehead, then repeated, “Everything is going to be just fine.”
Lessons came hard in the years that followed. When I was ready to return to school, my parents had to fight countless battles with public school policy about kids who were “different.”
They eventually had to put me into a school for the mentally and physically handicapped.
The following year, however, they won their battle with the school system, and I was accepted into public school. I didn’t realize how much harder it was going to be. Before I arrived, announcements were made to ask students to be kind and not to stare. But everyone did. It took most of the year before the “Hey, Frankenstein!” calls subsided, and I was finally accepted.
In the next twelve years, I had twenty-four plastic surgeries to repair my “melted” face and hands.
By the time I was nineteen, experience had provided me with excellent skills when it came to dealing with people. I had also achieved a measure of success in school and sports. As I entered my early twenties I felt restless - I couldn’t understand why a smart guy like me couldn’t seem to find the right woman and the right job to give my life meaning.
After some months browsing through self-help and spiritual books, I was almost ready to admit that the problem might be me, rather than the world.
Soon after I completed high school, I moved to a town in the mountains of California where there were fewer people to face, and I could live in peace. One weekend, my mom came up to visit me. It was raining, so we sat inside and played cards and watched movies, just like the old days back in the hospital.
She asked me what I was going to do with my life. “Why aren’t you in school anymore? Mike, I’m disappointed in you.
So many people gave so much of their time, their energy, their lives to you. And what have you done with your life? I thought you would wind up a doctor or something like that.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Later we went to a local diner to eat.
The waitress greeted us. Her boy had recently been in a serious car accident, and she had confided her fears and sorrows to me. When she came to our table she said, “He’s coming home tomorrow. I want to thank you for listening, Mike - I don’t know what I would have done without you.” Then, to my mother, “Your son is a good man; I expect that you’re very proud of him.”
She took our orders and we sat in silence for a while. Then I spoke without even thinking about it - the words just tumbled out: “One thing I’ve learned is that I have an opportunity to make a positive impact on every person I meet. I try to help; I want to make a difference.
I’m like the phoenix, Mom - that bird that rises from its own ashes. Just by being myself, I show people that no matter what life throws at you, you can make the best of it.”
Mom smiled, and I thought things were okay. After she left, though, I really started to question if it was enough and when I would truly make something of my life. The next few weeks found me restless and discontented - as if I were standing on the edge of a great chasm.
After the fire, nothing frightened me anymore, but now I was scared: I picked up the telephone and called my father.
“Remember that offer you made a while back? I’m ready to come down from the mountains.”
I packed my belongings and hit the road. Soon, my beloved mountains - my safe refuge - were behind, and ahead was a long road into the unknown. At a rest stop, I climbed up to a rock overlooking a tranquil lake and pine trees as far as the eye could see, and cried.
From my first day at the office, I worked hard, meeting new people and learning the latest technologies. And a funny thing - because I didn’t think about the scars on my face, people didn’t seem to pay much attention to them, either. As the years passed, I climbed the corporate ladder and eventually was promoted to manager.
That’s when I met my wife, Debbie.
From the start, it was like “Beauty and the Beast.” Well, I assumed myself as a beauty and joked that she’s not really a beast - she’s actually quite pretty. Who would have guessed that a guy with a mug like mine would love and be loved by such a gorgeous woman? After we married, we moved to Austin, Texas, where we live today.
On a recent weekend, my mom came to visit. “Mike” she told me, “your business must be doing pretty well - I’m so proud of you.” Then tears filled her eyes as she asked, “Do you remember that day in Tahoe when I said...” “Yes, Mom, I do.”
We sat quietly for a time, remembering. And when the words finally came, I knew what I had wanted to share all these years, but couldn’t find a way to express until now: “You know, Mom, when I got burned it wasn’t a tragedy - it was a gift.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, surprised.
“I’ve learned not only to watch people, but to see them, inside and out.
And I’ve come to appreciate how fortunate I am, because my scars are only on the outside.”
“Now let’s go eat, shall we? I know a great little restaurant.” She smile happily.
-Mike Gold