Familyhood Read online

  When our first son was born and it became apparent he needed extra help to get him on his way, we investigated countless medical and therapeutic avenues. Some seemed promising, some didn’t, but almost all seemed worthy of at least considering.

  Among these was a Chinese healer in L.A. who had helped the son of a friend of ours in several very dramatic, borderline-miraculous ways—all of which were attested to by this very reliable friend of ours, and additionally confirmed by other mutual friends.

  I’m willing to believe in almost everything, until I’m given reason not to believe. Even if it’s ultimately revealed to be false, flawed, or even fraudulent, I usually find something beneficial in momentarily entertaining the possibility that it’s true.

  So we called the guy and set up an appointment.

  Far from being the wizened old mystical-looking man-of-the-mountain I was expecting, this guy was in his early fifties, a bit stocky, wore a golf shirt from some exclusive country club, and drove a shiny new Mercedes. Okay. No reason this guy can’t have a nice car and play golf; that doesn’t mean he’s not a magical healer. The fact that he chain-smokes unfiltered Camels like a pool hall hustler doesn’t mean he won’t pull some brilliant trick out of his golf-shirt sleeve and miraculously heal our infant son. Certainly worth a shot.

  Though he seemed to understand us pretty well, he spoke very little English, so he brought along his wife—an attractive, well-coiffed Chinese-American woman his own age—to interpret. I couldn’t be certain, but it seemed like she took great liberties with the translations. For example, the good doctor would say something in Chinese that sounded to be five or six sentences deep. Thirty, forty seconds’ worth of nonstop questions/comments/opinions, which she would then translate as: “Very handsome, your boy.”

  “Really?” I’d think. “That’s all he said? It sure seemed like he was talking a lot more than that.”

  But none of this made me doubt the guy’s ability to heal; I was just increasingly amused by it all. Yeah, it’s pretty odd stuff, but, again: what wouldn’t you do for your kid?

  He asked some general background questions: “Does your baby sleep on his stomach or his back? Does he seem to resist certain foods? . . .”

  Other questions were more of the spooky, mojo variety. “On the night he was born, did you go to the hospital from this house, or were you somewhere else?” “How long have you lived in the house?” “Who lived here before you?” “Did anyone ever die here?” “How much did you pay for the house?” (This last one, I suspect, was not a literal translation so much as his wife’s curiosity, but still—not a problem. Happy to have a chance to have this guy work his magic on my son.)

  After some long, pensive meditations (which involved him stepping out to smoke more Camels in privacy), the doctor explained that he believed there were some nasty spirits lingering in our house that may have in part contributed to our son’s health issues. At the very least, they weren’t helping. (As I understood it, these weren’t “spirits” in the traditional, creepy Halloween-y vein. These were . . . I don’t know. Older. And more Chinese.) And this guy could get rid of them for us.

  It should be pointed out that he never talked about money—and in fact never charged us a thing. So it wasn’t like he was trying to pad the bill or anything. He was there to try and help. Of that I was certain.

  HE EXPLAINED that there were actually three ways to get rid of these “spirits”: the first involved putting forth prayers and affirmations and asking them nicely to leave. The second option was a bit more forceful—it involved somehow making them leave. The third and surefire option—which he told us he would just go ahead and do for us since we seemed like nice people—was to cut through all the pleasantries and just kill the suckers.

  “Okay,” we said. “Sure. Let’s go with that. Um . . . how do you kill them, exactly?”

  He made us a list: we’d need to get some black sesame seeds, a specifically sized white porcelain bowl, a bottle of 110 (or stronger)-proof alcohol, and a large, new, six-inch kitchen knife. (I swear to you I’m not making this up. He may have been making it up, but I’m telling you exactly what happened.)

  When the actual “hit” went down, we were advised to be somewhere else. No problem. We loaded our infant son into the car and drove around for about an hour and fifteen minutes, which is, apparently, how long these things take.

  I don’t remember exactly what we did for that time, but I do recall praying, among other things, that these lovely ambassadors of alternative medicine weren’t, at the moment, rifling through our drawers and stealing us blind.

  They weren’t. We returned home to find the doctor in the backyard, enjoying a little post-exorcism cigarette while his wife was inside, cleaning up some of the demonic debris. The knife was on the floor, next to the shattered ceramic bowl (it was $1.98—no big deal). We were not told exactly what had happened, and we didn’t ask. But the operation, they reported, was a success; the demons were gone. Our house was officially de-funkified.

  Not finished. Now we had to collect the “dust” and dispose of it properly. Okay. My wife and I went around the house with a little Baggie to gather the ghost detritus. We managed to come up with about three molecules of actual dust, but used nearly twenty-five pounds of wrinkled-up paper towels, which we stuffed—with the dust and the little Baggie—into a tremendous, industrial-sized trash bag.

  As I’m sure you know from your own numerous domestic demon-ridding experiences, this stuff cannot be disposed of just anywhere. There’s a very specific procedure involved. Dr. and Mrs. Kooky told us we had to dump the evil ghost poop far from our house—“someplace out of the ordinary path” of our “travels.”

  Okay. So we drove about twenty minutes and found a perfectly nice little residential area we’d never been to—and to which we would now certainly never be returning.

  Furthermore, according to Dr. Screwy, the drop was to be made at a “point of great energy”—a busy intersection.

  Okay. So we scoured the neighborhood for just the right intersection: wide lanes for lots of potential “great energy flow,” but with no one there at the moment. We didn’t need witnesses.

  When first presented, it seemed like getting rid of this demon dirt would be akin to flicking an ash out a window. Not even; more like blowing out a candle. A little harmless smoke dissipating into thin air. But as my wife sat there with a teeming trash bag on her lap the size of a mature panda, ready to heave it out the window, this “dust removal” seemed now to be an egregiously antisocial act of ecoterrorism. But this was for the health of our child. We must do it!

  We pull into the intersection. All systems are “go.”

  “Remember,” my wife says just before our synchronized moment of attack, “we’re not allowed to look back.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t you remember?” she says. “He told us we may likely hear a voice beckoning us. A wind . . . Something that sounds like someone calling our name.”

  (Seriously—not making this up, folks.)

  “When did he say that?”

  “When he told us to do all this other crap! He said whatever you do, don’t turn around.”

  “Why?”

  “Because! If we—ooh—the light’s green! Go, go, go!”

  Okay. I step on the gas, we soar into the intersection, and my wife the “accomplice” heaves the few specks of ghost crap—and the acre of paper towels encasing them—out the window, and as we shout our apologies to the nice people whose neighborhood we just violated and sullied, we race the heck out of Dodge.

  A FEW WEEKS LATER, Dr. and Mrs. Whacky came for a follow-up visit. Our house, they reported, was still glowingly demon-free, and our son was looking rosy and blossoming nicely.

  The doctor did, however, notice some “blocked energy” in our boy’s midsection. “Nothing to worry about,” he assured us. (Actually, his wife assured us, but I was pretty confident she got it from him.)

  He instructed us to massage our s
on’s right foot, “exactly in this spot over here.” Not yet well versed in the ways of Eastern medicine, I was confused as to why, if his belly was the problem area, we were rubbing his foot. Why not rub his belly?

  They explained to us the concept of chi and meridians. How energy flows through the body in lines, connecting internal organs to other points, so this point on the foot might connect to the liver, whereas a half inch over on the foot could correspond to the gall bladder. The idea that pain manifesting in one place could actually be a sign of trouble in another place was new to me, but graspable. And compared to throwing ghost powder out a car window, this was a piece of cake.

  I did as the doctor prescribed and massaged my son’s little foot consistently and diligently.

  A week later, the doctor returns, examines our son, and is surprised to find the problem not yet cleared.

  “You sure you’re rubbing the foot right here?”

  “Yes,” I assure him, a little annoyed that he would question the integrity of my work.

  “Do it one more week,” he tells me. “Rub a little harder.”

  Sure, why not. Still happy to do anything for my child, still happy to believe that magic is at play and miracles are around the corner.

  I rub my son’s foot for another week. Dr. Spooky comes to the house again, and is again disappointed to find that massaging my son’s foot has not unblocked the energy in his gall bladder or his kidney or his soul or whatever the heck it was connected to.

  He steps outside to smoke a cigarette. (The doctor, not my son. My son was about twelve months old.)

  He comes back in and has a new plan of action. He instructs me to continue the massaging, but with one tiny adjustment: instead of rubbing that specific spot on my son’s foot, rub that same spot on my own foot.

  I ask his wife to repeat that, presuming I’ve misunderstood. The doctor smiles, anticipating my skepticism. I mean . . . I’m open to anything, and admittedly, it costs me nothing to rub my foot. But . . . what?! Rub my foot to heal his stomach?! Now you’re talking crazy-talk.

  The doctor chuckles along with me politely, acknowledging that by almost any standard, this is a big leap. But he holds his gaze on me an extra moment, letting me know that, crazy as it may seem, this is indeed what he is suggesting.

  My brain reels, and my knees buckle. I sit down and try to get my mind around even the bare bones of the thinking here.

  “Are you telling me . . .” I can barely form the sentence. “Are you saying there’s . . . like, a connection, between my son and me, that I can soothe his pain by doing something to myself?”

  This was crazy, but potentially kind of good crazy, because if, in fact, that were true, sign me up. I’ll do that all day long. Take some treatment myself which will heal my child? Yes, please.

  The more I let that idea ricochet around my mind, the more excited I became. Not just for the practical applications—the idea that I might be able to help my son—but even just conceptually; that he and I could be so magically and tangibly connected was a thrill to contemplate.

  Just to be sure I was getting it, I repeated it back to the doctor.

  “So . . . you’re saying . . . I can feel his pain in my body?”

  The doctor gave me a funny look, a tentative nod that suggested I hadn’t quite gotten it.

  “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  The doctor then took his hands and slowly crossed them over each other. “The other way around.”

  Fortunately, I was already seated, because this literally knocked me back. I felt the wind get pushed out of me as I collapsed back in my chair.

  “What?! What are you saying now?” I so wanted to be done with this. My brain and my heart were exhausted.

  Dr. Nutjob gently explained the possibility—it wasn’t a certainty, he was just raising the possibility—that maybe I was the one in need of some healing and it was my son who was registering my pain in his body.

  As opposed to every other whacky possibility raised so far, this one I had to reject. Because this one did not make me feel better; this one pained me. The notion that this infant—already bearing more than his share of challenges and hardships—would also be taking on my problems? That couldn’t be right. The universe wouldn’t do that. And curses upon anyone who would even suggest that.

  WE STOPPED SEEING Dr. Hocus and Mrs. Pocus after that. To this day, I have no idea how much—if any—of what they brought to us was helpful or true.

  I do know that my curiosity did get the better of me, and after they left that night, I started massaging my foot as the doctor had suggested. And I know that within two days, whatever was bothering my son’s stomach went away. The “blockage” seemed to have unblocked. He smiled more and slept better.

  Coincidence? Maybe. Cause and effect? Could be. I have no way of knowing. I’m just telling you what happened.

  And something in me felt different too, after that. I felt lighter. I don’t know what it was, or if there was even a grain of medical explanation for it. I just know that I was cured of something. Maybe it was the evaporation of skepticism. Or the blossoming of some new strand of hope.

  WHATEVER IT WAS, I’ve never let go of the idea that my son and I are connected in ways that defy conventional logic. And that after all is said and done, it’s quite possible it is, in fact, he who has been helping us all along, and not the other way around.

  I don’t necessarily believe everything anyone tells me anymore.

  But when it comes to this boy, I do believe in everything.

  It’s Not Just You

  The President of the United States’ oldest daughter went away to camp last summer. I know this because he shared it with me. Well, not with me personally. He told the whole world, but I was listening. He also mentioned that one of his daughters got a 73 on a science test and the other started wearing braces.

  I was genuinely happy to learn each and every one of these nuggets. For a couple of reasons. First of all, I found it comforting and inspiring that the leader of the free world manages to make time for the minutiae of his children’s day-to-day lives. We don’t elect robots; we elect real people with, hopefully, a sense of all realities facing other real people. And I have to say: a man dealing with his kid’s braces or improving his kid’s science grade sounds pretty grounded to me. Not the type of person likely to go off half-cocked with the levers of power in hand.

  Hearing the President share details about his kids made me feel connected to him—father to father. When he confessed that he was oddly happy about the braces because his daughter was, to his mind, starting to look “too grown-up,” I got it. I know the feeling. “She’s still my baby,” he told the world, even though the girl is five-foot-nine and well on her way to being a fine young woman. I can sympathize; my oldest son, who I used to carry around like a football, is no longer so portable, shaves now, and has taken what I can only describe as a very healthy interest in girls. I could have waited a while for this to be the case, but I get no say in the matter. And neither, I see, does the President of the United States.

  On the other hand, I’m sure the President’s young kids weren’t thrilled to have their personal life served up on the 6:00 news. My kids get embarrassed when I shout, “Have a good day” in front of their friends. I can only imagine it would be worse blurting it out on CNN.

  But what I also found so gratifying about these presidential tidbits was seeing that even Mr. and Mrs. President find it hard to not talk about the kids.

  My wife and I try—but have yet to pull it off. We’ve had evenings out, deliberately orchestrated “grown-up dates,” where the only agreed-upon, enforceable rule was: “We cannot talk about the kids.” Five minutes is our current record. And to be fair, that was my fault. I was so pleased with our achievement, I blurted out, “Look how we’ve gone five minutes without talking about the kids.” Apparently that still counts.

  So it gives me no small pleasure to imagine the President in the same boat. I envisio
n the rare occasion when the first couple manage to squeak out some time together, the discussion might begin like any other married couple’s, with some detail from the busy workday, the President perhaps kicking things off with something like “Boy, you know who’s funny? Putin! What a crack-up!” Or maybe an intimate appeal for counsel. Like “Honey, any idea where I put the stimulus package? Is it possibly in your car?” You know, everyday stuff.

  But in no time at all, I guarantee you they’ve moved on to the kids. It’s biologically impossible not to. Upon becoming a parent, the part of your brain that deals with speech gets irrevocably wired into the part of your brain that only cares about your kids. (I read that cavemen had the ability to reproduce before they had the ability to talk. Which (a) helps explain why foreplay wasn’t invented for thousands of years, and (b) underscores how deeply this need to talk about our kids is ingrained. Till they reproduced and had kids, cavemen and cavewomen had nothing to talk about. Post-kids, I bet you they talked about nothing else.)

  That’s the way it is in our house. In fact, the only respite we have from talking about our kids is talking about other people’s kids.

  We talk about other people’s kids a lot. We observe, we comment, we compare. And, I’m ashamed to say, we’re not always kind.

  “Did you see those pants on that kid? Who’s dressing him—the circus?”

  “Look at how that kid climbs all over the furniture. Where’d he grow up—the circus?”

  “And how about that kid’s table manners? Where’d he learn to eat—the circus?”

  (None of this, by the way, is meant as a slight to circus people—who do a bang-up job keeping their children safe around so many wild animals and clowns—but as a confession that I sometimes make myself feel better by putting down other people’s kids. Okay? Now you know.)