The first dream I can remember having was of uncontrolled fire. I was lost in a blazing orange landscape. If I were Christian, I might interpret it as a vision of Hell.

I hadn’t thought of this dream in years, but reading Stewart O’Nan’s book, The Circus Fire, reignited the memory. In the pages of The Circus Fire, O’Nan relates the true story of the 1944 Hartford Circus Fire, a sudden conflagration in which 167 people, most of them women and children, lost their lives. Generally, I don’t even like reading fictional accounts of children in jeopardy, especially since becoming a parent. Willow’s face flashes in my mind as I read, and try as I might, I can’t begin to imagine what it would be like to lose a child. Despite that, and despite the heartbreaking nature of the story, the book proved to be a fascinating window into another time. In amongst descriptions of corpses fused together by the heat and eyewitness accounts of the fire itself, there are some enduring mysteries, including the origin of the fire and the identity of a little girl, virtually untouched by fire, who is known only as “Little Miss 1565”. I recommend this book for anybody with an interest in history and a strong stomach, not to mention a certain amount of emotional fortitude.

I probably wouldn’t have read this book at all if it weren’t for my personal connection to the story. On that humid summer day in 1944, my mom was at that circus with her mom. She was only 5 at the time and obviously escaped. She wasn’t burned or trampled like other small children were that day. Now that I’ve read the story though, I wonder if the fire actually did leave another kind of mark on her. One of the things I’ll always remember about my mom is that before leaving the house, she would always double and triple check to make sure the stove was off. Being in a fire often has the effect on survivors. Of course, she would always double check that the door was locked too, so maybe I’m making a connection where none exists.

As for me, I find that I’ve picked up my mom’s habit of checking stoves and locks. This may or may not be due in part to a fire that happened nearly a quarter century before I was born. As for my childhood nightmare of fire, it probably happened when I was about the same age as my mom was when she experienced her own very real version of that dream.

It’s also interesting to note that I owe my very existence, not to mention Willow’s, to my grandmother’s choice of seats that day.

Currently listening to: The United Sons of Toil "When the Revolution Comes, Everything Will Be Beautiful"