The Gift of Fire Read online

  Also by Dan Caro

  “NO-HAND” DAN COMPILATION, VOLUME 1

  (CD; available at: www.dancaro.com)

  Other Hay House Books with Steve Erwin

  LED BY FAITH:

  Rising from the Ashes of the Rwandan Genocide,

  by Immaculée Ilibagiza, with Steve Erwin

  LEFT TO TELL:

  Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust,

  by Immaculée Ilibagiza, with Steve Erwin

  OUR LADY OF KIBEHO:

  Mary Speaks to the World from the Heart of Africa,

  by Immaculée Ilibagiza, with Steve Erwin

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  Copyright © 2010 by Dan Caro

  Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse.com • Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www.hayhouse.com.au • Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk • Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za • Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast: www.raincoast.com • Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www.hayhouse.co.in

  Editorial supervision: Jill Kramer • Project editor: Shannon Littrell Design: Riann Bender • Interior photos: Courtesy of the author, unless otherwise noted

  Certain names have been changed to protect individuals’ privacy.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use— other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher.

  The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Caro, Dan.

  The gift of fire : how I made adversity work for me / Dan Caro with Steve Erwin. -- 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-4019-2660-1 (hardcover)

  1. Caro, Dan, 1979- 2. Burns and scalds--Patients--Louisiana--New Orleans Region--Biography. 3. Burns and scalds--Patients--Rehabilitation. 4. Jazz musicians--Louisiana--New Orleans Region--Biography. 5. Drummers (Musicians)--Louisiana--New Orleans--Biography. 6. New Orleans Region (La.)--Biography. I. Erwin, Steve. II. Title.

  RD96.4.C373 2010

  617.1’1092--dc22

  [B]

  2009049490

  ISBN: 978-1-4019-2660-1

  13 12 11 10 4 3 2 1

  1st edition, March 2010

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my parents, John and Marilyn—

  the strongest souls I’ve ever known.

  Contents

  Foreword by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

  Chapter 1: Birth, Death, and Rebirth

  Chapter 2: Out of the Ashes

  Chapter 3: A New Thumb, and New Challenges

  Chapter 4: Making Miracles

  Chapter 5: The Gift of Music

  Chapter 6: Navigating the High-School Waters

  Chapter 7: Finding My Own Way

  Chapter 8: Higher Learning

  Chapter 9: In the Spirit

  Chapter 10: Living the Dream

  Chapter 11: The Winds of Change

  Chapter 12: Synchronicity

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Foreword

  You are about to read a book that will forever change your concept of the word impossible.

  Dan Caro’s story will introduce you to a whole new way of looking at the power of the human spirit. Somewhere within the soul of this young man, there exists a kind of magical vision that has allowed him to overcome the most challenging and difficult set of circumstances and emerge as a role model for all of us. This inner vision not only made a survivor out of Dan, but it has given him the ability to live his life at a level that most people—especially those who have never been confronted by such challenges—couldn’t even imagine for themselves.

  When I first heard about all that Dan had been through, I was deeply and profoundly moved by his unwillingness to make excuses for anything in his life … and God knows he certainly would have been forgiven had he not made that choice. Had Dan just given up after being terribly burned as a two-year-old, everyone would have understood and explained it away as the natural result of a horrifying accident. But in some mysterious way, he simply refused to travel that road. Instead, he calls what happened to him his “gift of fire,” and he has made his life an example for all of us to admire and attempt to emulate.

  I met Dan as I was making preparations for a national PBS special based on my book Excuses Begone! I immediately asked him to come on board with me and provide a firsthand, live example of someone overcoming enormous adversity sans any and all excuse making. Dan rocked the audience and absolutely blew me away, giving a stirring performance of how to be a world-class drummer without the benefit of hands.

  Dan is one of the most inspirational people I have ever had the privilege of meeting. I love his message, and I love the man even more. I know that his story will not only fill you with admiration for his truly remarkable achievements over the past 28 years, but it will also help you realize the truth in the old maxim: “Nothing is impossible to a determined soul.”

  I encouraged Dan to write this book after receiving thousands of letters from people who told me how much inspiration they received from watching him on my PBS special. I love the beautifully honest rendition he’s given of his life in these pages. Yet nothing written here (or anywhere) can begin to depict the soul of Dan Caro. His determination and courage leave me in awe, and his sense of humor about it all leaves me breathless. His original title for his book was Look, Ma, No Hands! That says a lot about the character of my friend Dan Caro, about whom I say, “Look, everyone, no excuses!”

  — Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

  Maui, Hawaii

  Chapter One

  Birth, Death, and Rebirth

  I was born just a stone’s throw from the Big Easy. My mother gave birth to me in the heart of bayou country— in the old southeastern Louisiana town of Metairie. That’s right outside the one and only city of New Orleans.

  There are two things you can’t escape in New Orleans: the humidity and the music. If you’re lucky enough to call this place home, the humidity is a burden you learn to live with, and the music is a penetrating joy you never want to go too long without. And if you’re a musician— especially a jazz drummer—what better place to grow up than the birthplace of jazz itself?

  New Orleans has its own cadence, a rhythm fashioned centuries ago amidst the cultural clash of its first inhabitants and the subsequent blending of African, European, and Latin musical traditions. What evolved was a rhythm that is distinctively American, and as primitive and potent as the human heartbeat. It’s a rhythm that has given birth to countless new harmonious styles, from jazz to zydeco, from Cajun music to the Delta Blues. It’s an inherentl
y soulful sound that has endured wars and disease, hurricanes and floods. But it’s also woven into the tapestry of daily life in the Big Easy, part of everything from funeral processions to prayer meetings, from garage jam sessions to smoke-filled Bourbon Street jazz clubs, from the smallest music festival to Mardi Gras itself.

  That rhythm pulled my soul to the city before I was born, wooed the cosmos when I was only an embryonic notion to my parents—and, as I emerged, planted a vision in my heart and body that I’d follow for my life to come.

  Yes, I believe I was destined to become a musician. So I was not in the least surprised to learn that my parents, John and Marilyn, had met and fallen in love at a concert. Both of my father’s parents had played musical instruments, and Dad was a professional musician himself in his younger years and had even managed to support himself playing the trumpet. Unfortunately, as I would one day discover, being a musician is a precarious career at best, and paychecks can be few and far between. So when my parents decided to get married, Dad put the trumpet aside and began selling insurance.

  Soon my mother and father had saved enough money to buy a small house in a lower-middle-income neighborhood in Metairie and begin raising a family. When I arrived in the world on November 16, 1979, the Caro family was already well under way. My eldest brother, John Jr. (or Johnny, as we all call him), was born seven years before me and was an only child for four years until my brother Scott arrived on the scene. For most of my seminal years I was the baby of the family, a role I was forced to give up when my little brother, Paul, was born not long after my eighth birthday.

  We weren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but to use a cliché that truly fit our family life, we were “rich in love.” We lived modestly but never wanted for anything. We always owned the house we lived in, and that house was constantly filled with laughter and music. Friends, relatives, and neighbors crowded our backyard during countless barbeques. And although I honestly don’t know how my parents afforded it, every year without fail they packed my three brothers and me (and usually a couple of our pals) into the family van and drove us somewhere exotic—such as the Florida Panhandle—for a summer vacation. We’d fish, sail, and enjoy days of doing nothing but exploring sandy beaches and plunging into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

  Curiously, my very first memory is when I was only three or four months old. My big brother Johnny picked me up and held me over a small brick pond in our backyard so that I could see the goldfish that lived there. The shiny orange fish apparently fascinated me, and Johnny held me above the water as I giggled. Even though I was being dangled perilously over water, there is nothing terrifying in that memory for me now—just a sense of contentment while being in the arms of someone who loved me. And despite the trauma my family would endure less than two short years later, that feeling of being protected by every member of my family throughout my childhood is one of the things I treasure most even now.

  I also grew up secure in the belief that there was a higher power watching over me. My parents were and still are devout Catholics. Not only was attending Sunday Mass mandatory for my brothers and me, so were early-morning prayers—and I mean early! I’m sure it was actually a bit later than my memory is telling me now, but it seemed that prayers always happened at the crack of dawn.

  Dad would barge into our bedrooms and drag his four bleary-eyed sons downstairs to say the rosary together. Most of the time I was still asleep as I began the first “Hail Mary,” and I honestly wasn’t aware of a word I’d uttered until I heard that all too welcome “Amen” escape my lips. Then, you see, I was able to return to bed until it was time to get ready for school.

  Even though I would question Catholicism in my teenage years, I never lost faith that all of our lives, and the very universe itself, are guided by a force greater than ourselves—one that we cannot, perhaps, ever fully comprehend. Whether we call it God, the Divine, or simply Energy, it is a power that will enlarge our souls and enrich us if we have the courage to go through life with open minds and compliant hearts. It took me years to discover this immense truth, one I am still unraveling as I continue my living journey. However, I don’t want to get too far ahead in my story… .

  When I was six months old, my family moved from Metairie to the nearby town of Gretna. Our new house was big and had an amazing backyard, with plenty of space for a swing set, as well as room to play catch or tag. It also had a big peanut-shaped swimming pool where we could retreat to escape the soupy-hot, sticky air of southeastern Louisiana summers.

  I celebrated my first two birthdays in that sprawling, neatly mowed backyard with my entire family and some of the neighborhood kids my own age. Although I was too young to remember much about those parties or anything else from that time, my older brothers and parents have told me all about those early years. And since my dad was a home-movie fanatic, I’ve repeatedly watched countless hours of video chronicling our family life from 1980 onward.

  On those earliest tapes, I can see my first and second birthday parties: the young, laughing guests; the giant cake; and me, tearing through piles of wrapping paper as gifts are placed in front of me. There’s my mother smiling adoringly at me, and my father waving happily as he holds me in his arms. There are my two older brothers carrying me around the house, playing air guitar with me, and teaching me to walk and talk as though keeping me company was the greatest game ever invented.

  It’s strange to look at myself as I was during the first couple years of my life. Watching those flickering images is like glimpsing an alternate reality, one residing forever in a distant universe that I only occasionally retreat to in dreams. Nonetheless, in those videos I was a rambunctious, cute, sandy-haired kid with a mischievous smile; smooth, unblemished skin; and twinkling blue eyes that didn’t have a care in the world. It was a lovely, idyllic time.

  OTHER THAN IT BEING SAINT PATRICK’S DAY, there was nothing about the morning of March 17, 1982, that stood out or gave my family any reason to suspect that all of our lives were about to change forever. Of course, there never are any solid indicators that something profoundly good or overwhelmingly horrific is about to occur. Life just happens to us, deals us cards of fate, and it’s our job to either endure the hand dealt or fold altogether. In my case, the life I was barely becoming aware of exploded, literally, in front of my young eyes.

  I’m told that it was a particularly beautiful morning in southeastern Louisiana, sunny and mild without a hint of humidity. That Wednesday began like any other in our house: My parents rose early and had their morning prayers and breakfast done by 7:30 A.M. I was still in diapers, so naturally I stayed at home all day with my mom. My older brothers Johnny (who was nine at the time) and Scott (who was five) quickly dressed and shot out the door to catch the school bus. When Dad headed to work a few minutes later, Mom carried me outside with her so we could kiss him good-bye.

  As my father pulled out of the driveway, my mother noticed that the grass in our yard was getting long. As a surprise for Dad, she decided to do something she’d never done before—mow the lawn herself. A short while later, she put me down in a fenced-in area of our patio that kept me away from our swimming pool, the most obvious threat of danger to a little boy just beginning to wander and investigate. I was an active, curious child; my mother has always told me that she loved that about me.

  Mom set me down just a few feet away from where she was working in order to keep a close eye. She then went into the garage and filled the lawn mower with gasoline from a gas can my dad kept stored in the corner. She hauled the mower outside, started it up, and began the task at hand.

  I was probably out of my mother’s line of vision for less than ten seconds when she turned to push the lawn mower in the opposite direction, but that’s all it took for me, a natural-born escape artist, to wander through the side door of the garage, probably in search of my favorite toy, a little plastic Flintstones wagon.

  I’m not sure how it happened, either when I stepped into the ga
rage or was pulling down one of my toys from a shelf, but somehow I knocked over the gas can my mom had used. Before I knew it, gasoline was pouring from the can and flooding across the concrete floor. An invisible cloud of fumes rose from the floor and within seconds had reached the pilot light of the water heater, which was standing in the far corner. A moment later, the garage exploded into a roaring inferno, and I was standing in the center of it. With the air around me blazing at nearly 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, my skin instantly blistered and baked away, much of it to the bone.

  It was a flash fire that lasted only an instant … but would stay with me for the rest of my life.

  I DON’T REMEMBER THE EXPLOSION, THE FIRE, or the screaming afterward. But the piercing cry of her burning child sliced through the droning engine of the old lawn mower and directly into my mother’s heart. She instantly bolted toward the garage and saw my limp, smoldering body sprawled across the now-blackened cement floor. I was dying and she knew it; her screams of terror penetrated the otherwise sedate neighborhood, prompting several neighbors to call for help. She was still screaming when it arrived.

  Firefighters, sirens blaring, raced to us only minutes after the blast and immediately went to work, cutting the charred and melted clothes from my body. They lifted me into their arms and carried me out of the garage to the backyard, laid me down on the grass near the swimming pool, and tried to cool my boiling body and bring down my core temperature by pouring gallons of pool water over me. Ironically, the most “dangerous” part of our yard—the pool I had been fenced off from—became a major factor in my survival.

  The one clear memory I have from that day is watching a fireman repeatedly dipping one of my mother’s clay flowerpots into the pool and then carefully letting the water stream over me. I remember that the terra-cotta pot was emblazoned with a Native American design, and water flowed out of the drainage hole on the bottom as he rushed it toward me from the pool.