It enters my mind from time to time, usually late at night when the thoughts of the day give way to the thoughts of my life so far. I was four years of age when it happened, so a great deal of what I remembered had to be filled with the memories of those that were there to witness. But I think what jogs my memory of it the most are the lines on my father's back. These lines had no particular length or pattern, yet they could write a novel with one single gaze upon them. Perhaps there is some secret code inscribed, written in a language that cannot be seen but felt. Each mark a letter written in a type of braille that no one can make out. I wish I could say that thoughts of the sort never entered my mind, after seeing them after all these years I should have been able to let it pass into the place where forgotten memories go. But every time I look, I am once again reminded of the true fragility of everything the two of us have accomplished. Something tells me that, when my father sees the scars on his back in his reflection in the mirror, he is reminded of the same thing. It is a sure fact that if these scars were not present, it would be quite easy to say that instead I would not be present, in my place only photographs on the wall and whispers of tragedy. It is for this reason that I think on it every once in awhile, the time that my life was almost taken from me in one grand movement.

It was warm that day; warm and, like any stereotypical Floridian day, the sun beat down upon the land below. The sky was a rich blue, dotted with puffy clouds that hung almost motionless in the sky, nothing could be thought to be out of the ordinary in any fashion. Disney World, a place that, in my mind, is so close to being synonymous perfection that one could say they are one in the same, if such a thing as perfection could ever be obtainable. A refuge for both myself and my family, Disney was a favorite place to travel among each and every member of our clan, and the possibility of visiting it whenever possible was a virtual no-brainer. The air was compact with the joyful screams of children, alongside the groans of their elders. On this particular day, a much younger edition of me was among these screams, partaking in all that the Typhoon Lagoon Water Park had to offer guests. I stood still momentarily and allowed my mother her forced Kodak moment, my four year old self standing next to a statue of Lagoona Gator, the red reptilian mascot of Typhoon Lagoon, frozen in time on a photograph that decorates our upstairs hallway to this day. Behind the camera stood my mother, her blonde hair just as dirty as mine is today but nowhere close to the sickly pale that topped my head that day, smiled to hide her frustration with my frown and discontent with our present stillness. Next to my camera-wielding mother stood my father, a pinnacle of health for a man in his middle thirties. Covering his body, a natural bronze skin hue that none of his three children could replicate, so much so that stories arisen by my mother from time to time of my father not being allowed inside the room because the nurses had trouble believing that a boy with skin the color of snow could have a father with a copper gilded tan. Besides the freshly trimmed goatee that covered his face, he was without a blemish on his body. If a decade in the 80s had taught my father anything, it was an emphasis on maintaining a form that would shun Hercules on any given day. His hair, black as coal, absorbing the light which reflected off of my pale-as-snow bowl cut. He looked at me with his dark green eyes, the only visible resemblance between the two of us, and grinned at the obvious anxiety sitting still was causing me.

“Smile” was all he said, his voice thunderous even when at ease, filled with gravel and sand, but with this one word came a multitude of possible connotations and definitions that only frustrated me more. Eventually my older brother, the closest in appearance and build to my father, was just as impatient as I. Frustrated, he walked over and forced a smile upon my face. Forever frozen in time is my forced smile brought upon my brother’s strategically targeted tickling. Forever frozen is my pale Wisconsinite skin doused in a layer of sunblock that made my skin shine, soon my skin would be cherry red and burning to the touch from the Floridian. I must admit that I was never good at taking photos, and I suppose that some things never change.

The day was not yet noon, the sun still hanging in the east that fried our family as we sprinted for the attractions. We split our family in two: my father grabbed my hand and guided his four year old boy to the area designated for children, while my mother and older brother chased after anything that would raise their pulse. This was the way it had always been and always would be: my mother had always been the thrill-seeker of my parents. She had raised money throughout college to travel across the world as soon as she received her diploma, returning to tell her tales of skiing the alps and trying snake while in Australia. She sought adventure in every corner of life, and passed this down to my brother. My father has never left North America: he hates travelling and being on a plane even more. Although he looked to be made of steel, he found his kryptonite in roller coasters and heights: the combination of which often proving to be too much. Although a trivial thought, I am often struck with wondering what would be if my father had ever gotten over this fear, if it were my mother that stood as my guardian whilst my dad was off with my brother. Perhaps there would be no need to wonder at all.

Regardless of what could have happened, it would be that my mother and brother were the two that went sprinting into Typhoon Lagoon’s famous water pool, while my father took me by the hand and walked me over to the side to watch the titanic waves soar by. On each side of the wave pool stood walls in which spectators could walk out a certain distance. This was where my father and I sat, my small feet dangling over the edge and my fathers to the right. All were waiting in anticipation for the next wave to be released to spread its chaos that every guest craved so. What seemed like an eternity in time was passing by as guests waited anxiously for the arrival of the force that would knock them from their feet and scatter them around like paper in the wind. And at last, they were given what they had been waiting for so impatiently. The plethora of noise and chatter had quickly faded to a silence that spread like plague throughout the pool for only a brief moment. The droves of spectators staring at the source of a sound that would shun any pang of thunder that Mother Nature, Zeus, and Thor could conjure up together in one terrible force. Following this was the briefest of complete silence, a true silence, with nothing but the rippling water to give any indication of life remaining.

It all happened in a matter of thirty seconds. One minute there was calm, jump forward one minute later and the only thing that had changed were the people. But that’s not entirely true, the water was a different color this specific time around. You could hear the wave before any signs of it could be seen: a mechanical sound almost like a lever going off. Then what would follow is a sudden wall of water with the force of being hit by a car. My father saw this, saw it and had enough of a mind to brace himself, but what he didn’t see or foresee was the sheer height of this wall of water. Perhaps he was too focused on the boy overly giddy to see his brother get dunked, perhaps this was a particularly strong build up that created a superpowered wave. Whatever the reason, when this wave passed him, it took his youngest son with it. Grabbed by the feet that had been dangling over the side, I was swept from my position of ease and dragged into the unknown. This of course has been long erased from my memory, or perhaps stored in what Freud would call repression, but to my father this moment can come as easily as his middle name. Without hesitation or preconception, he dove in after, clutching me in his arms immediately. Together for a brief moment we floated on top of this massive wall of water, a calm before the storm. For this wall soon became a wave, a massive wave with the two of us soon being sucked into it. My father did his best to hold his child above water, a child who knew as much about swimming as he did calculus. When the wave struck however, there was no preventing it. We were both dragged to the floor of the pool, rough as sandpaper to provide grip for those that were standing. For my father, desperately attempting to hold my head above water as well as his slowly dissipating breath, the sandpaper floor did nothing except cut into his body dragging against it, tearing into the once picturesque muscular tan back staining the pool crimson.

One minute later and we were were the only two left in the pool, guests sent away screaming with the sight of purple filling the pool. It was toward the shallow end that the two of us were dragged to shore by the lifeguards, a little too late to help either of us. By now, the wave pool had been evacuated, still crowds surrounded by multitudes attempting to see what had caused such a damper on their perceived paradise. Gazing upon us with faces of horror, they probably were wondering a myriad of thoughts; why did this have to happen today? how could this happen at Disney? Would they get a refund? At first my father refused to leave my side, clutched me in the same strength that had dragged the two of us through hurricane force and across the floor of the pool. But when my mother came sprinting out of the crowd crying for her husband and son, I was released and sprinted over to wrap my arms in her safety. It was halfway there that I turned back to look upon my father, roaring in pain and slamming his fists onto the ground. He turned over onto his stomach and lay there, his back now covered in the jagged lines that remain on his back to this day, surrounded and dripping in the crimson that was weeping from them. It was in my mother’s arms that I would remain for the remainder of that day, as the paramedics rushed by to take my father too the emergency room. My mother’s hands that guided my face away from his torn back, ripped by the claws of Mickey Mouse. Our collective tears could have filled the very pool that the two of us had narrowly escaped from that day, as I watched them help him up and walk him away. God had bled before my very eyes.

Little  else has remained in memory after watching my father being driven away in ambulance. I remember the night at the hospital, my mother soaking wet from both her tears, my brother’s tears, and my own. My father, besides an understandably large amount of pain, would turn out to be alright. He turned down stitches in exchange for a large bandage, more concerned about finishing the remainder of his vacation. A large bandage that covered his back for some time after that had to be changed everyday and that was all that had not faded in time. My father had survived to live one more day and so had I and I suppose that is all that matters anyways. Typhoon Lagoon is nowadays less preferable than Somalia as a travel destination for my father, but Disney World in whole has not been dammed by him. For the most part, the event has been folded away and brushed underneath the family rug: a poorly done chapter in a well done book. Occasionally it is joked about, at my expense of course. The boy that almost killed his father, at least it didn’t rain, the best way to learn how to swim, the jokes about it could go on and I would still laugh over it mainly because up until about two years ago I had no recollection of the event, and it was up to my mother to provide the details while my father looked on with a forced smile, I can only imagine what that smile could mean. There are moments though, moments when I stare at my angst face on the picture in our hallway, or when my father lounges at our lake house with his shirt off, when I see the lines that covered his once-spotless back. I look upon these scars and I am assured of two things: that he would do it again in a heartbeat, and that the story of boy, in all its entirety and all of its possibilities and all its hope, could have been cut short in the same amount of time.