I opened my eyes and swiveled over. The sun flashed into my eyes and burned. Once I could at least get a vivid picture of what was going on I looked up. My mom was cradling me in her arms. She gently put me down. I was dizzy and still could barely see. “I’ll be right back Alex!” “Ok mom!” I stared at her for a minute, and then she was gone.
In front of me was a huge steel monster, or at least that’s what the grill looked like to me. I was sitting on a freezing brick wall. I springed down and then hauled myself back up. The air was bitter and unbearable. I could detect my heart beating. There was a presence of awkward silence throughout the air. I rapidly flipped my head to the left and then to the right. No one was in sight although I could here faint whispers coming from the near distance. As I got closer to the grill the wind picked up and I was starting to breathe heavily. I could see a picture in my mind almost urging me to turn around and go back to the wall, but I didn’t. I could scent the charcoal from the grill, and glimpse the cloud of smoke hovering above the grill as I wobbled closer. I wasn’t intimidated or felt fear. I was curious.
My hands were frigid and dehydrated, and then suddenly my hands were sizzling on the grill. I ripped my hands off in a split second and put my eyes on them. They were turning bright red and then purple. The skin was peeling off my bones rapidly. Tears started pouring down my eyes and shattered on the brick pathway. My mom darted over when she saw what had happened. She punctured my eardrums when she screeched. My mom was panicking.
I will never fail to recall that fateful day. My mom and I were on the ground. Everyone was going insane. I was only fifteen months old. What did the people think was going to happen? Why do people panic anyway? What does panicking solve… absolutely nothing. If people acted normal during emergency situations it would cause a lot less stress and get you to safety more swiftly.
I was hospitalized for two dreadful months. Once I left the agony continued. For three continues months I had to go in for a “cleaning,” otherwise know as torture. The procedure was simple; the doctor would take a brush and pry all the dead skin off my hands. Not to mention the three plastic surgeries I had to have over the coarse of seven years.
Two years ago, when I was 11, I was on a fishing excursion with my family. I whipped back my rod and launched it into the clear blue ocean. I was reeling it in as rapidly as possible and accidently snagged my leg when the hook leaped out of the water with no fish on it. I had a terrible gash in my leg from the hook that got stuck in my skin. My mom and I were calm that day, and knew I’d be thriving again immediately. I can guarantee she recalled the day I burned my hands instantly when I got the gash, and so did I.
As I go through life I learn to deal with what happened on that day. Somehow, through the pain and conflicts I experienced when I was younger, I feel after I burned my hands I became a tougher person. Sometimes I say to myself, if I could go through that, I intend to go through any situation that comes my way, no matter the difficulty.
I not only made an imprint on my hands, but an imprint on my life.