Although his fingers were amputated after fire burned 100 percent of his body, author John O’Leary showed students at Cristo Rey High School he can still play the piano – a message that it is possible to overcome even great difficulties in life.
When John O’Leary talked today to students at Cristo Rey High School, he showed them he knows something about facing obstacles.
One moment, he was a nine-year old boy, perfectly happy. “Life was good, the hair was perfect, my clothes were on fire,” he jokes, standing in front of a photo of his young self.
John O’Leary’s book On Fire is coming out in March and each senior at Cristo Rey will get a copy.
But then he made a mistake. After watching older boys lighting gasoline on fire, O’Leary decided to try it himself in his family’s garage. He struck a match and the fumes exploded, engulfing his body.
“In life, it’s very seldom what we see coming that burns us,” he told the students.
O’Leary recalled how he woke in the hospital and sensed what those around him were thinking, that he might not survive the severe burns that covered every inch of his body. He asked his mother if he was going to live, and she told him that was his choice, not hers. He told her he wanted to live, and she gave him some advice worth repeating.
“Take the hand of God, walk the journey with him, and fight like you have never fought before.”
That began years of fighting his way back, O’Leary said. Skin was grafted off of his head in surgery every week until he looked relatively normal. He spent high school “wanting to look and act and talk like everyone else, but it’s hard when you’re in a wheelchair with scars all over your body.”
Today, he has a wife, four children, a career as a motivational speaker and a book coming out soon.
“And it was not easy.”
He told the students it may be easy to look at others and think they have life pretty good, but he challenged them to, instead, ask what more they can do to have a positive impact on others.
Now, he says, when he speaks students want to know what he can do physically. Although he lost his fingers, he demonstrates that he can still play the piano.
He added that he knew the Cristo Rey students all knew about struggling through adversity, or they wouldn’t be there listening to him. The private Catholic college preparatory high school serves students with economic needs, many of whom have faced difficulties in their home lives.
“I understand every student in this room has been through something like this.”
He challenged them, instead of dwelling on problems, to turn to the person next to them and make a commitment to change life for the better.
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