WHEN MY SON CAUGHT ON FIRE.

Another part of a lifetime

I am no story teller, but I'll tell you a true story of another time of my life. But first let me say that no story I tell of myself will ever be fictional. They are real! I married a girl in Old Mexico when I was 23, and about 7 months later I had to take my sister to the states to be operated on in Houston by a Dr. Cooley. He is a heart surgeon. My sister had a very bad heart and he tried to save her, but she died while I held her hand. On the day that I was taking her to the states, and as she started to get into the truck, she stopped and turned and looked at my wife and said, You take care of my little boy and then climbed in. that was the last time my wife ever saw her. As it turned out, it was a boy that we had. he weighed in at 10 lbs. when he was born. At the time of his birth, they did not allow the fathers into the delivery rooms as they do here, but as I was waiting outside the doors I heard my wife calling out to me. I went in. The Dr. yelled for me to leave and I told him I wasn't leaving. This went on for several times and he finally told someone to bring me a robe and mask. I then watch my son come into the world but not without difficulty. He was turned around wrong. They used forceps to turn him and cut her to get him out. After he was delivered, they took her to a room and after she as settled in, I went to ask to see my son. They brought me another boy instead. Had I not been in there I would not have known. I told them that the boy was not mine and told them what he looked like for he was light complected and he had black hair and green eyes. the boy they brought was not him. They finally found him and brought him to me. I brought him and his mother to the states where I could better provide for them. We went to Victoria Texas and it was there that at the age of 2 months old, I took him in for a check up and found out that he had walking pneumonia. They kept him in the hospital for 2 weeks while they ran tubes down in him and stuck him with needles until his little legs had knots all through them. They also said he was to fat because he weighed 20 lbs. I told them, Didn't you say that at the age of 2 months that he should double his weight? They said yes but that he was still to fat. So when they brought him some food, I followed them back to where they stored it and stole some when they were not looking and then stood guard while my wife fed him. Now time has passed and we are living in Portland Oregon. We had gotten there the day after the mountain erupted and it was a bad time to look for work. Finally we found some work but by that time the lights were shut off on the house we rented. We didn't complain, we couldn't pay yet so we got a candle, a kin kade,  and a coleman lantern. Now my son was turning 2 years old on this day. We got home from work at the same time our babysitter brought our son home and we went into the house together. I ignited the candle which was on top of the wood burning stove then went to light the kin kade ( oil based lantern ) for I had already tried to light the coleman lantern and it wouldn't work. I thought that maybe I had put to much fuel into it so I poured some of it out into a plastic cup and put it up onto a cornered nick knack shelf. Then I went to light the kin kade. My son at the age of 2 was and always has been very strong and he would at the age of 2 , would lift a 5 gal bucket of drywall mud and move it a couple of inches at a time until he could reach the pool table of my brothers, and then climb up and push the balls around. I forgot this while my wife and I were filling the kin kade. It was then that we heard a short yell and then my wife screamed and took off, I turned in time to see my son passing the door on flames from his knees up. I dropped the kin kade and ran out to them in time to see my son falling to the floor and my wife dropping down beside him trying to pat out the flames. I grabbed her by the shoulder and tried to move her but she felt like a ton of bricks. I grabbed her again and this time she felt like a feather as I tossed her back across the room. I can still see the bottom of her feet as she flew backwards. She landed and popped right back up but by that time I was rolling my son back and forth but the flames would not go out, so I rolled him onto his back then I laid on top of him to smother out the flames with my body. There was still some flames coming out both sides. I patted out one side while my wife patted out the other. When they were out I picked him up. His nose was almost burnt through on one side , his lips were turned inside out, and his cheeks were peeled. His little hands were peeled back to. As we held him my wife was screaming , MY SON"S BEEN BURNED over and over. My son looked at his mother and after all that he had been through said to her, It's ok mama, Don't cry. We rushed him to the hospital and all the while my son NEVER cried  from the moment that he got burned till he was completely well.  I THANK GOD that he didn't breath in the hot air while he was burning and that he didn't scar very much. I am BLESSED. Since then I have almost lost him twice more due to head on collisions when he first started driving. The day that we brought him home after he was born I held him up towards the heaven and I thanked GOD for him but that I was giving him back to him, for who better to protect him than GOD ALMIGHTY.