Raedene

I hated doctors’ rooms like I hate creamed spinach, the smell of disinfectant always reminded me of death, but I had no choice. Damien insisted I seek help to try and figure out what was wrong with Braden. Scattered magazines lay across the table in the waiting room; next to us was an old man whose face mapped the years of hardship he must have endured in his life time. I couldn’t help but wonder what brought him here today.

“Miss Callaway, you can come through,” the receptionist said, standing with our file in her hand.

I reached out to take Braden’s hand, but as usual he pulled away and my heart sank. This was going to be interesting.

We spent close on an hour with the psychologist, who made Braden draw pictures of his family. It was no surprise when he drew his imaginary family, a mother with long brown hair, a dad he had never mentioned before and a little sister, all standing next to what looked to be a wooden house covered in snow. I didn’t even feature. After all the tests were done, Braden was left to play in the play room while I waited for the conclusion to this madness.

“Miss Callaway, does Braden have a father?” he asked and I cringed.

“Well, it’s complicated, I only found out I was pregnant after his dad was out of the picture, so he doesn’t know his dad.”

“Have you ever told him about his dad?”

“No, he never asks about him, he has also never mentioned his imaginary dad,” I said, watching him jot down notes.

Why did I suddenly feel like I was under scrutiny?

“Look, it’s very early to tell, and there are other tests I can run, but from what I am able to determine, it looks like Braden is experiencing some sort of past life regression, are you familiar with that term?”

Off course I am, I wasn’t born under a rock, “Yes I am, but as far as I know that’s a lot of speculation with no real facts to prove that it actually exist.”

“Yes, it is. The idea of past life regression is unfortunately unchartered territory, but some great progress has been made to determine the science behind it,” he slid a brochure over to me and then smiled, “Children eventually grow out of it. With the right approach, they soon learn that the past life they tend to cling to is something of the past and they soon start to adopt their new life with much enthusiasm.”

“Okay, so what am I supposed to do now? I mean, he hardly talks and putting him in a day care makes it even worse, because other kids make fun of him.”

“It’s no easy task, but I would like to help you through the process,” he said and rode back in his chair.

“I don’t want him on any medication,” I objected, that was the last thing I wanted. Nowadays everyone seems to want to shove pills down kids’ throats for the simplest of conditions. If the kid is too active its ADHD, when all it is, is the fact that the child has no way of expending the pent-up energy that gathers from spending too much time behind the television or playing computer games.

“No pills. Your first step is to stop rejecting his other family, you need to embrace them. Ask him to tell you about them. You need to show him that you are interested in his life, and that you care for his other family.”

What he said made perfect sense; I was just not so sure if I could cope with the jealousy factor. Braden compared me to his mom with everything I did.

“Another thing I might suggest is to get in touch with his biological father if you can. Giving him that closure might just trigger him, the fact that he has never mentioned that to you means that he is afraid to approach the subject with you.”

“I’ll see what I can do, it’s no easy task to get in touch with his father, but I’ll try.”

That was it, settled. I left the rooms with an information overload and a threatening migraine; at least it wasn’t anything serious like Autism, which was a relief. Now all I needed to do was figure out how I was going to reach out to my little champ.

Much later that day after taking pain killers and while Braden was taking his afternoon nap, I picked up the pamphlet the doctor gave me. Lamarckism - a condition whereby an organism passes on acquired characteristics to offspring, which may include past memories of the parents or grandparents. The more I read the more I realized that going to the psychologist wasn’t such a bad idea after all. There were still a lot of questions that remained unanswered and the condition itself was still being studied in-depth, but at least I had some direction now.

Get in touch with his biological father – my conscience reminded me very inaptly. Caleb had no idea that Braden existed, how was I ever going to tell him after all these years?