Mente Sana

One day, they took me away from my family, wife and child. A Child Services', adamant and imposing representative, chewing gum without blinking once, showed up at our doorstep and said she'd need to investigate a claim against us. Her investigation, she said, would last for six months, but in less than a month from the day she arrived, I was out of my son's life.  She started asking questions about medications, whether we used drugs, before proceeding to inspect our bodies, our home. She entered the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and asked where was no meat. It's commonplace nowadays to have people question our way of life, I had warned my wife things were different now, it's a high price to pay for being healthy in a society bent over backwards in sickness.  The representative insisted in interrogating our son, a 13 year old boy on the spectrum, in the privacy of our bedroom even though we suggested using the living room as we could've waited in the livingro...

My child was diagnosed with autism when he was two years old. His mother told him the news as if it was anything other than the most mystifying and perplexing news a parent could ever hear. She had no idea so she did not experience any sorrow or the slightest shred of fear. I cried upon receiving the news. I thought to myself it was ironic that, as a man who had no relationship with his father, now I was also cursed with not having one with my son. Forgiveness is, having nothing to regret. How wrong was I.  From what I had read about autism, I knew it was the children's version of alzheimers disease. A neurological ailment without cure, mostly pervasive and unknown, characterized by a brain bent on remaining childlike, like a clock stuck on a particular hour, immutable to the passage of time. I had read news that it was making a comeback since the late nineties, especially now that more women were having children later on in their lives. That much I knew, which quite frankly wa...

I did not want you before I had the chance to meet you. And so, I loved you ever since.  So much so, I no longer recall the one I was before then. On what quest did he relinquish such unforeseen dream?  To what realm?  To be better each passing day, so I could be by your side for longer, Is all I wanted. It is said that Siddhartha Wouldn't have become the Buddha, Had The Annointed One Chosen to hold his newborn And be a father. Instead, Siddhartha chose the path That led him to  The greatest spiritual journey ever. I, too, chose a path that day. And it led me  To what was no longer my path. That life is sacrifice. And that enlightenment is always  At hand, If only  One is brave enough to embrace it. I held you in my arms, Little  One. A few days later you smiled  And it was as if suddenly  A divine grace fell upon  That tiny apartment. From across the centuries.  It was as if Buddha were smiling back.  That life's sufferin...

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”  -Frederick Douglass. If you want to have and drive a car in any given modern society, a license is required. You'll need to have a degree of knowledge in order to operate the vehicle, in order to navigate the traffic rules and regulations of the road ahead.  You'll need not just the know-how but also a license certifying so. Yet, when it comes to our children, which will one day take the steering wheel into the future, no such understanding is required; no written consensus on this matter necessary, which is mind-boggling, considering how much more significant it is.  We can safely say that raising a child is far more a complex task than driving a car.  How many people hold a parental certificate? Vocationally, yes, perhaps; but no one asks the potential mom-and/or dad-to-be about their credentials in raising a child.  Wouldn't it be great if it was even proposed as a vocational alternative? It ...

Scientists and great thinkers tell us that we live in a universe completely oblivious to our condition.  It"s not that it's out to get us, but that it does not play favorites. It is perhaps their way to stick it in to their theological counterparts. Because I find it hard to believe that an uncaring universe will somehow device at least a third of the conditions favorable to harvest life. I'm not saying the universe did a great job either. It could've been far more accommodating. It's hard to complain too, either way. You can imagine the universe say, forget those humans, or all the other animals, but make sure they have plenty of water, oxygen and a nice horizon. Take a small chunk away from the existential repertoire and it would spell doom. Say, for instance, that we extract the moon from the equation. We would have minutes to live. Say something on a much more smaller scale, like bees, and we got a few weeks to start dying off by the millions.  I guess the univ...