Familyhood (6 page)

What Little I Know

A
couple of things
worth knowing about my older son:

He will try almost any new food.

He smiles so radiantly that sometimes you actually have to back up.

When I'm on the phone, he will hover nearby and parrot what I'm saying so exactly and simultaneously, managing to be both titanically obnoxious and brilliantly funny at the same time.

And until he was about eleven, he didn't quite realize why—or
that
—he used a wheelchair.

His moment of clarity came, as these things often do, in a very roundabout way. We were watching a movie about a soccer player who was afraid he wouldn't make the team if the coaches found out he had asthma, so he didn't tell anyone. Then the mean rival guy tried to sabotage him by destroying the guy's inhaler before the big game. Of course the hero played anyway, but he struggled running up and down the field, what with not being able to breathe and all.

This was just one scene in an action-packed, two-hour movie, but this was what stayed with my son: the guy breaking the other guy's inhaler.

When the movie was over, he sat there, stunned.

“Oh my God,” he finally said. “My friend in school uses an inhaler!”

“Yeah,” I told him. “It's a pretty common thing—asthma, inhalers and stuff.”

“No, but you don't understand, Dad. I could accidentally run over his inhaler with my wheelchair and he wouldn't be able to breathe and he could die!”

“Well, that's not going to happen,” I tried to assure him. “First of all, I'm sure he wouldn't leave it laying around on the floor, and even if he did, I'm sure you wouldn't roll over it. And even if you accidentally
did
roll over it, he could get another inhaler really quickly. So, I wouldn't worry about it; your friend's going to be fine.”

But he couldn't shake the image of his friend being vulnerable like that.

“I can't believe he has asthma.”

And pondering
that
led him to this:

“Wow . . . Dad, do
I
have any disabilities?”

I looked at him, not knowing where or how to begin. He certainly knew his own history: that he was born three months earlier than he was supposed to. That when other kids started walking, he didn't. That he needs to use a wheelchair, and that most people don't. But until he saw that movie, he had never realized what they mean when they say someone has a “disability.” It was like in the cartoons when Wile E. Coyote runs off a cliff but doesn't notice there's no ground beneath his feet till he looks down, and that's when he begins to fall.

Until this moment, my son had never really looked down. That moment was, for him, the beginning of clarity and acceptance. That it came to him by thinking not of himself but of his friend, and his fear that he could someday—however unintentionally—do something to endanger his friend's safety,
that
is the essence of my son's character; he sees the world in terms of
others
first, himself second.

HE HAS NEVER
asked why he was dealt this particular hand; why he is someone who has to use a wheelchair. He does on occasion share simply that he hates it, and he wishes it wasn't so. In those moments I have nothing remotely helpful to say. I remind him that I'm with him on that; I hate it too. And that more than anything in the universe, I too wish it weren't the case.

But we don't talk about it much beyond that. We just sit together in the midst of the loudest quiet there is. In the center of that quiet, there's a dull thumping; a perceptibly pulsing emptiness that announces we've traveled to the farthest reach of our combined reasoning. At that point, we just stay there, together, until we're ready to move on.

I MARVEL DAILY
at this boy's sparkling spirit and unshakable sense of self.

He was once in the schoolyard, playing with a buddy, when another kid—a jerk of a child who had been unforgivingly cruel to my son in the past, teasing him about some of his challenges—wanted to play with them. My son's buddy (the nice one) stood in my son's defense and told the kid no, he couldn't join them. The kid persisted. My son, the diplomat, then brokered the truce, telling the bully simply but firmly, “Okay, you can play with us, but you're not allowed to make fun of me.” The kid considered it, and accepted. He joined them, and never made fun of my son again.

Where a son of mine would get that clarity and moxie I couldn't tell you; I know I never had it myself.

I'VE OFTEN WONDERED
how exactly it is that my son, or his brother—or
any
child—ends up going to the parents that they do. I don't think it's coincidence. I enjoy entertaining the likelihood that there's some design behind it; that each family comes together as they do for a particular set of reasons. That everyone is there to get
something
. And even if they're not meant to get something out of it, they usually get something anyway. That's what a family does: it forms you. Uniquely and distinctly, hopefully in good ways as well as otherwise.

Ironically, because of my older son, our world has become more
accessible.
The universe has expanded for our family in ways it otherwise would not have. We are more appreciative and more keenly aware of every accomplishment, of what every seemingly minor achievement entails—getting from
here
to
there,
for example—and how miraculous it all is.

We are more aware of everyone around us. And they of us. Strangers are more gracious, more solicitous, more generous of heart. Partially because that's just human nature; you see someone could use an extra hand, you extend that hand. You hold a door open longer, you offer help up a steep curb, you find that extra measure of patience. It's what people do.

But more than that, it's the sheer force of my son's personality that opens those doors. He engages the world with such intensity and sincerity that he is an undeniable force for good. And I know this didn't come from me or even his mother; his particular inclinations and skill set are his alone.

For one thing, this is a kid who loves meeting new people. (Something I, myself, can generally live without.) Upon meeting someone, he will learn more about them in five minutes than I would in several afternoons, and will then proceed to remember everything forever. We've been to hotels, restaurants, doctors' offices, for example—sometimes seven years after our last visit—and my son will recall, with unfailing accuracy, the first name of the waiter, the doorman, the nurse, or the receptionist, and where they're from. By contrast, I tend to start forgetting people's names
while
they're telling me. Not this kid. He takes in—and connects to—everyone.

WHEN HE WAS MUCH YOUNGER,
and wondered why it was he was born earlier than he was meant to, we sometimes joked that it must have been because he had so much he wanted to do in life, he couldn't wait to get started. It seemed as good an explanation as any.

With time, though, I've come to see there was more truth to that than I knew. My son, at fifteen, has plans to travel to (and learn the language of) every country he's ever heard of—in an absurdly circuitous sequence: start with Japan, then scoot over to Jamaica, pass through Portugal, China, Switzerland, and Kenya, before finishing up in Korea. He wants to meet the president, he wants to meet the pope. He wants to meet the guys who fly planes, he wants to meet the guys who
clean
the planes. He wants to meet the person who makes coffee (not who puts up the pot of coffee—the person who actually puts coffee beans in the ground and
makes coffee
). He wants to kiss a girl from every country. He wants to meet the lady who arranges the travel for professional sports teams. (He may want to kiss her too, he hasn't mentioned it.)

We—his family, actual and extended—will endeavor to help him accomplish every one of his goals. As we will his brother. He may need a bit more help than his brother, and that's fine; that's precisely what we're here for.

EVERYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN
knows there is nothing they wouldn't do for their kids. It's not even necessarily a conscious decision; it's a capacity that gets born in
you
at
their
birth. From that moment on, you discover that you will do things you've never done before, things you may not want to do, things you're afraid of, things that may make you question your sanity. Sometimes all of those in one swoop.

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.