On Palm Sunday 1980, sometime around midnight, I was 4 years old and awoke to a smoke filled room and noticed flames dancing up my walls in my bedroom. I had never seen fire like this before. My eyes burned and and the shock from the heat and sudden fear, I gasped for air but only smoke filled my lungs, I couldn’t breath. I heard screaming from the long hall between my room which was on the furthest end of our apartment…I ran toward the door but the hallway was engulfed in flames. Once I exited the apartment the floor and carpet was on fire. I ran downstairs but the thick smoke blinded me, I couldn’t move. I ran back up the stairs and followed the screams outside and finally exited the building through the flames and was lifted up by a fireman and handed to my grandfather. I remember standing there watching our home burn to the ground. All was lost. I remember my neighbor look down at my legs and feet and I’ll never forget the look on her face. She was horrified as the skin was completely scorched with 3rd degree burns. I spent some time afterward at Victory Memorial and spent the next 6 months on crutches and weekly treatments removing the dead skin from my feet. It felt like an eternity during the healing process. This was before PTSD but ever since for many years I suffered from social anxiety. I was 19 and first saw the painting of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”. At first glance, I was drawn in by the beauty of the painting but also recognized the very emotion that inspired the work of art. Getting the tattoo was part of the healing process for me in 2005, 25 years later
